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Gorilla Catechism 



BT 



EMANUEL HERZBERG, M.D, 



L 



" Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, 

And thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefatf 
I have trodden the winepress alone; 

And of the people there was none with me: 
For I will tread them in mine anger, 

And trample them in my fury.'' 



14 Itaqne, si aut acrius egero aut liberius quam qui ante me dixerunt, peto a vobis, ut tantnm 
orationi meae concedatis, quantum et pio dolori et justae iracundiae concedendum putetis." 




NEW-YORK: 

G. LAUTER, PRINTER, No. 8 NORTH WILLIAM STREET. 

1869. 



rtti 



(.4 



^ 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 

EMANUEL HERZBERG, M.D., 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 

District of NeW-York. 



THAT the natural sciences alone should furnish the rules 
and methods for the education of mankind, is, I dare to 
consider, an incontestible fact. The study of zoology led me 
to direct my especial attention during my wanderings in the 
great zoological garden of nature to those genera and species 
which, it is believed, approach nearest to man, to the true man, 
for whom I have made these observations and for whom I am 
now writing. 

I met there then a species of gorilla, native of the interior 
parts of Asia, which, being readily acclimated, is now an in- 
habitant of all known zones and which promised to afford the 
most points of support to found rules and methods for the edu- 
cation and cultivation of men. 

This species of gorilla is especially distinguished from the 
other species by articulate language. It asserts, 

that its chief aim is, to cultivate to the highest possible 
point what is called intellect. 

"We shall demonstrate later how the exertions of the gorilla 
diverge from this point, and each deviation is obstinately, and of- 
ten not without acuteness, defended. I found then, which in fact 
was often disgusting, and again occasionally amusing, that this 
species of gorilla, by dint of a so-called higher culture, has 
reached the point which presents a perfect aping of nature : that 
great nature in her cimpiicity and sublimity, in her eternal in- 
variability and regularity, in her grandeur and majesty appears 
thus simply as a farce, that she stands out in the gorilla thus 
personified; that, therefore, this species of gorilla is through 
its higher training the embodied travesty of nature, 

NATUEE BUKLESQUED. 

The gorilla exists in distinct sexes and it casts living young 
engendered within the mother's lap from an egg. It is generally 
known, that the young resemble the old, "Like parents so 



child !" or " The apple falls not far from the tree !" (except when 
the latter stands on a declivity) are oft quoted maxims, sung by 
poets and pithily applied in : "Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis : 
est in juvencdy est in equis patruum virtus, nee imbellem feroces 
progenerant aquilce columbam." Legislation, habit and custom 
with the gorilla endeavor boldly to tread this law of nature 
under foot, and glory in it, as we shall see farther on. 

Male and female walk erect. The female carries its breasts 
anteriorily on the chest from the third to the sixth or seventh 
rib. They form the most prominent part of the body, and are 
there for tJie purpose of nourishing the young, perfect placentae 
foetales. I observed among the most cultivated branches of this 
gorilla, which claim especial civilization and decency, and boast 
of a superiority trained nature, the following customs, habits 
and rules. 

It is considered a beauty among the gorillas, even by those 
who have already become mothers, to carry these breasts as pro- 
minent as possible, to force them directly in the foreground. 
Mother nature has, as is known, deemed fit to locate these 
swellings to the side, facing the axilla. But that custom is uni- 
versal, and every gorilla female who has even the slightest claim 
to education, follows it. In the highest circles, that is, among 
the more cultivated females, where real breasts are now found 
only as rarities, and the naturally full ones considered, more or 
less, a sign of lack of delicacy and refinement, they have long since 
invented artificial ones, which are much more easily managed. 
They usually stick on their chests lumps of rags, hair, wool, 
empty wire- work, and in the modern times, as I learn from an 
authentic source, air cushions, and parade these publicly. — The 
wearer as well as the fashionable dressmaker considers it of the 
highest importance that these lumps, bunches, cushions, wires, 
etc., be of the most recently approved size and shape, well 
aware, that the male sex look with especial gratification upon 
such protuberances. To gaze at them is allowed, nay such ob- 
servation is even anxiously sought after; when the females meet 
in their assemblies, they make diligent inquiries of each other 
about such attentions. But to approach them with the touch 
is damned as brutal, and allowed only to those initiated in the 



mystery. The quadrupeds, as is known, wear these develop- 
ments below the body and sheltered from view — natural decency, 
good for quadrupeds ! 

The gorilla female understands how to play off in elegant 
circles and at festivities on the male these conspicuous land- 
marks, which, as we have said, are neither natural nor solid, but 
generally contain air. This deception is practiced directly by 
means of hollow bolsters, and rendered necessary indirectly 
through abuse and contempt of nature, which the gorilla female 
has forced in to subjection by pushing aside, destroying by arti- 
ficial means the milk channels, and obtaining instead only rags and 
ruins. The gorilla female, while thus exhibiting ridiculed and 
shamelessly abused nature, desires in all modesty, that certain 
rules of decency be strictly carried out. It wears these outstationed 
lumps of rags wool and cushions of. air modestly covered ; and 
high up, where the swell commences, is fastened on the neck of 
the dress a linen covering, which, as a sign of true modesty, is 
named modesty -piece. It will only intimate by this modesty-piece 
that, although the eyes of the whole male world might appa- 
rently be invited to promenade on this gentle slope, nevertheless, 
they must penetrate no farther beneath than is salutary for both 
sexes. The less cultivated gorilla females freely open their 
breasts when in company, in omnibuses and so forth, and pre- 
sent it to their young to draw nourishment. But that is con- 
demned as vulgar in high, truly cultivated circles, where progress 
has long since done aivay with natural breasts, leaving only ruins 
and rags, and abolished nursing itself. 

The gorilla is, among other things, an equestrian, and on the 
whole, appears well as such. But not their pope with his sancti- 
mony, humility and woefulness. It always excited pitying laugh- 
ter within me, when I saw him mounted. The incongruity 
between the softness, meekness, mildness and humility, apper- 
taining to his saintly character, and the fire and spirit necessary 
to bestride a horse and subdue it to the will of the rider, is 
indeed obvious. Both sexes ride, though not usually both 
at the same time on the same horse. The country gorilla 
generally sits a horse like a cat would a whirling grindstone. 
Of that I do not speak. For the refined city gorilla it 



6 

is a rule in riding, to turn the toes nicely in and up, the heels out 
and down. In walking the reverse is the rule : turn the toes 
down and out, the heels in and up. This rule is pitilessly en- 
forced, and, justly, I think, as your judgment of refinement, 
inherited from noble ancestry, or of clumsiness from plebeian 
depends on the dexterous execution of this. Notwithstanding 
all that, it cannot be helped, here and there, where mother 
nature has deviated from the usual rule in the formation of the 
knee and hip articulations, that bow-legged, knock-kneed gorilla- 
caricatures among the nobility are produced. 

For the hands the rule is, that, in expansion and natural develop- 
ment, they must be retarded to furnish proof in the high, that is, in 
the most cultivated, circles, by thus crippling the hands and groiving 
long, claw-like nails, that the animal understands, by dint of a higher 
culture which certainly is not to be found among the rude, uncivilized 
hordes, to live without working, that is, at the expenses of others, 
"When the physicians among the gorillas find themselves obliged 
to recommend wholesome exercise to the females, they must be 
very careful, if they would not be thought uneducated, not on 
any account to choose those, be they even the most beneficial 
and indispensible, which could possibly make the hand grow 
and extend, such for example as boat-rowing etc. The gorillas 
wear on the hand even in ordinarily cultivated classes shoes — 
gloves — in order to contract them, or to protect them during 
work, or not to expose them to the light or the sun, and often 
even at night. The less cultivated imitate this, and occasionally 
put their fists also in such shoes, as an assumption of rank and 
standing. But in vain. The gorilla of high birth immediately 
recognizes the lineage of such clumps when stuck in gloves, be 
the glove worn according to the style of rank and custom, or be 
it only occasionally carelessly exhibited in all its freshness from 
the pocket. In other countries the newborn gorillas wear shoes 
which compress the foot, with the same view, that is, to prove 
through their inability to walk, that they need not work, and 
that they possess means enough to ride, or to have themselves 
carried in palanquins. So act the refined gorillas of Europe and 
America with the hand, and those of Asia with the foot. They 
exhibit their, high standard of civilization and knoivledge of how to 



master nature! — Later generations, born of ancestors -with such 
' crippled hands and feet, bring the same as a natural gift into the 
world with them, and prove through their possession alone their 
noble blood. — This can in future be contaminated only through 
intermarriage with other gorilla castes, with the so-called clumsy- 
handed and clumsy-footed gorilla, gorilla with hands and feet 
exactly as mother nature allows them to become when naturally 
exercised — gorilla without education and refinement, gorilla of 
the common herd! — The nobility of descent, having become a 
part of the blood, can never be lost, never mistaken, whatever 
the noble gorilla may perpetrate against law and justice, both 
of these existing only for his noble self, and perfected for his 
prerogatives. — The reader will easily perceive that the gorillas 
like the old Egyptians live also in castes. The caste of the 
nobles are the aristocrats, among whom incontestably culture 
has been aimed at and treasured for thousands of years, and 
who call themselves the privileged, from privare legem, to 
deprive of law. But that foreign word does not sound so hard 
to the ear as the ordinary plebeian expression theft, robbery. 
The noble animal never allows itself to be guilty of such low 
acts. That would be, as the learned gorilla expresses it, a con- 
tradictio in adjecto: theft, plebeianism, and high nobility ! Which 
any one with common sense would readily admit. But, indeed, 
you find such expressions only with the low and vulgar, who 
have not yet climbed the ladder of culture and who arc, as I 
might say, always instinctively prone to call things by their 
common names, instead of using choice euphemisms, which 
sound so agreably to the cultivated, civilized gorilla-ear. All le- 
gislation can naturally be based only on these privileges !— They 
must necessarily be ambitious, democratic demagogues, who 
dare shake them, or propound, or suggest, or even harbor the 
question: ichat is the origin of these privileges? Such godless- 
ness, such derision, such ridicule of divine right, of God and his 
commandment, of all that is sublime and good, nay, of even 
state and crown, justly exasperates the noble gorilla. For, it is 
exactly, as if one were to question/Wlience comes the everlast- 
ing, eternal Being ? And it requires all the magnanimity of the 
deeply offended nobility, to whom truly numerous sacrifices 



8 

have often to be offered, to appease this rage, summoned from 
the depths of their souls. 

With the male gorilla the chest is deeper from the superior to 
the inferior part, also broader than with the female, the ab- 
domen shorter, smaller. Therefore, with him the waist is nearly 
in the midst from the tip of the shoulder to the top of the hip ; 
with the female high up under the shoulderb-blade With the 
male, lines drawn from the tip of the shoulder to the hip run 
parallel, while the same, with the female, would converge toward 
the top and diverge toward the hips. The lower extremities 
come down straight to the feet with the male ; with the female, 
they descend obliquely on the sides and backs, converging toward 
the feet. Consequently, the female gorilla exhibits altogether an 
extremely crooked figure, ivhile the build of the male presents a very 
harmonious appearance. 

I have heard the following story narrated by gray-bearded 
elders among the gorillas. When, soon after the great flood, the 
female gorilla saw that, in respect to beauty and strength, she 
was created inferior to the male, and that in the whole animal 
kingdom from the gorilla down, the male, in comparison with 
the female, always stands the handsomer, stronger, prouder, 
more magnificent, more majestic; and that all rivalry and dispute 
would be fruitless, she sought after a remedy, and thought to 
reach il through subtlety and tricks. She soon succeded, in- 
deed, in intoxicating the male gorilla with the idea of a new 
science, which could only be acquired by a male so powerful, 
intelligent and good, who, above all, was the representative of 
all that is beautiful and noble, namely Courtesy. This cour- 
tesy teaches that the male, as the stronger and handsomer, 
should pay before the world homage to the female, and yield 
to her his claim to beauty; and, with his own superiority before 
his eyes, should never lose sight of her dependence, subjection, 
and true weakness, and should never address her in society 
otherwise than as his gracious sovereign. Evidently all irony, 
falsehood and deceit ; as the gracious mistress, lulled by the long 
practice of this deference into a foolish belief of it, often requires 
that her individual position be made clear to her directly or 
indirectly. I remember, during my juvenile days, a female gorilla 



of the noble caste, who, when seen on the streets parading with 
her noble lord, colonel of a regiment, excited such whispers 
among the youth as : " There she comes, fresh from her legiti- 
mate chastisement." She knew, however, as well as her compan- 
ions, that might makes right, that the Lord so willed it from the 
beginning of creation, and further, that the gorilla, where al- 
lowed an inch, will only too often take an ell and become 
arrogant and pretentious, in which case position and sphere of 
weakness and forbearance incumbent on her naturally must 
.be elucidated. But that there are within the boundaries of 
elucidation various methods needs no mention, as, you know, 
there are various natures, some of which, even in more advanced 
years, require that such elucidation be incorporated. Each one 
has his taste. The same does not answer for all. — However, 
the gorilla of standing, do as he may, never becomes vulgar in 
words. "My beautiful, my beloved, my charming, my sweet 
mistress," are attributes which the female hears only too will- 
ingly, even after having just endured a hard explanation. 
Though the latter be exceedingly hard and penetratingly clear 
to the inmost sense andneedsbe daily repeated, yet those attri- 
butes, confessed in open society by a noble gorilla endowed 
with true culture and courtesy, sound so sweet to her ear, are 
so refreshing to her soul, that she does not allow her elevated 
mind to doubt their genuineness for a moment, even if all the 
sensory nerves of her body protest against it. 

My observations a"mong all classes of the gorilla do not allow 
me to doubt the truth, that it is solely courtesy which regulates 
their actions ivhenever the goriUas come in contact with each 
other, be it in domestic life or in social, be it even when separate 
tribes communicate with anotJier. It serves as a commercial foun- 
dation for mutual intercourse, and is expected to secure durability 
and stability. This courtesy, as taught by the learned, only bears 
different names according to the various branches of education of 
whichit is the spirit. We shall see, that religion, morals, justice 
and law. the military sciences, tlie science of administration, and di- 
plomacy are properly and strictly but so many branches of courtesy 
on the fundamental rule: Might sways the scepter at the 
expense of weakness. 



10 

Then, the female gorilla, to compensate the male for this tri- 
bute paid her in social life, vowed to search through all the 
three kingdoms of nature to discover wherewithal to enhance 
the beauty of her body, in order to load herself with it and pa- 
rade it, were her back even to break under the burden. All, 
be it understood, to please her mate, and never, you must 
know, to pander to her own vanity and egotism. — Since that 
time, the females, even those who are mere skeletons, wear during 
heat and cold, at home and abroad, a conglomeration of the 
products of all nature wear it from head to foot, on and above, 
the head, on the ears, lips, nose, in the mouth, on the neck, 
bosom, shoulders, arms, hands, back, hips, lower extremities, 
feet, and they oil and bedaub the skin to distinguish themselves 
to great advantage at the very first glance, as being civilized, 
cultivated gorillas, different from those rude tribes of Africa and 
other countries, which here and there only meagerly adorn 
themselves with such trumpery, and have never studied such an 
art, nor reached such a perfection in decking each part of the 
body. This art is founded on firm rules of higher cultivation, in 
Christianity. 

I was once honored with the permission to be present at a 
medical perlustration made by a gorilla physician on a gorilla 
female of position, who suffered with an indescribably bad odor 
from the surface of the body, against which all the essences of 
both the Indies, had been called into use,and had only the effect 
of stifling you with the same kind of fumes that are often found 
in the dwellings of men, which arise from burning incense to 
cover certain naturally bad odors emanating from their own 
excrements. As the medical gorilla understood the art and took 
time to examine, which is in contradistinction to physicians 
among men, who ferret out the sicknesses of the beautiful sex 
simply by sniffing around their dresses and bolsters without 
examining, and who discover disease only by virtue of their titles, 
high standing, reputation, experience, the gorilla patient was 
requested to remove her clothing. But what did my eyes there 
behold ! I am scarcely able to give a true picture of it. First 
a whole colossus, a perfect tower, was taken from the head— 
hair. I asked the gorilla, if she wore that in memory of some 



11 

of the dear departed of her family. She smiled at my naivete 
and ignorance of the great world, as she expressed it. "It is", 
she said, "a- prevailing custom, even with the lower classes, to 
buy these bunches of hair exhibited to the public in the stores, 
regardless whether they grew on*the heads of consumptives or 
syphilitics. For the principal maxim is not to live a simple 
and wholesome life and to guard against nasty, lethiferous sick- 
nesses, but to please. Whosoever wears the biggest wad of 
hah% pleases the best." The idea, that clothing is worn to cover 
nakedness, or to protect the body from the inclemency of the 
weather, has long ago been abandoned by the cultivated of her 
class generally as belonging to the dead past. 

But for all that, in other usual practices of daily life the 
nicest rules of health and etiquette are strictly observed, as could 
readily be expected from so educated a class. Never, for ex- 
ample, would the glass or the spoon, from which the clean, pure 
mouth of a friend has just sipped any beverage, be brought again 
unwashed to another mouth. It is true, similar marks of ill 
breeding are, alas, too often seen among the low classes, who, 
for example, will blow in a vessel of milk in order to remove 
the cream from the top or who, in order to test the heat of 
an infant's food, will feel it with their lips before presenting 
it to the babe. Commenting on this, the animal grew ironical : 
it would be more to the purpose, it said, to chew the entire por- 
tion, and push it with the lips into the young one's mouth like 
birds. She admitted that the pyramid of hair might certainly 
have grown on r a very filthy, diseased, pestiferous head, but smil- 
ing sweetly, she added: "I do not see it, and that sufiices! More- 
over, it is the fashion !" — I was silent. For, suddenly/there sprang 
up before my mind the pig-tail worn by the gentlemen of the last 
century. I thought, why should'nt the gorilla female practice 
the same a hundred years later? Even now-a-days, are not 
otherwise highly educated races of South Germany a hundred 
years behind the times, and ought they not to have been lashed 
by their brethren, as at Sadowa, into the right education?— 
I admire the fashion of the female gorilla in this particular, She 
practices all that and does not require to be lashed into the 
fashion. — She does it with cheerfulness and love. And even 



12 

should she fret and worry day and night and be obliged to take 
her bed to the pawn-brokers, nay, what is more still, even yield 
to the embraces of a strange gorilla male, what of all that ? 
Still she remains true to the fashion ! Vive la mode — perish the 
world! as she does all that solely to secure the love of her 
spouse. — The domestic duties, temporary aberrations from truth 
and duty, the public's mistrust and severe judgments, nay, even 
the suspicion of the weak husband who listens to insinuations : 
all these hardships, what are they in comparison to the sublime, 
god-like entrancement of sacrificing all, were it even soul and 
salvation, for her legal lord ! As all her sufferings, all the pains 
and torments of fashion with its million bad consequences are 
cheerfully borne solely in order to please him always anew ! 

I have only to add, that the gorilla usually wears the ballast 
of hair on the back of the head, never on the front. She said, 
there are so many phrenological developments at the back of 
the head which she does not wish to be seen. Evidently, she 
had studied Gall. 

Then the noble gorilla laid aside her double row of teeth, 
which were so delusive that, long after marriage, her husband 
did not know but they were natural. She has worn them since 
her thirteenth year, because her natural teeth were slightly un- 
even and of an offensive odor. She told me, that she had really 
assumed the rank of a lady since she. wore the new set of teeth. 
Everybody wonders at their beauty, when she opens her mouth 
to laugh. This, of course, happens now oftener, while before, 
even when there were occasions to laugh, the lips were cau- 
tiously drawn so as only to simper. This was often mistaken by 
society for precocious sageness, while it was done partly out of 
tender respect for her own feelings, partly to shield her neigh- 
bor's eyes and noses from offensiveness. Now she can even 
offer her mouth to any one for a kiss, which, forsooth, she did 
but timidly at first, for fear the cause of too sudden a change 
might be suspected. Each one who had enjoyed this privilege 
once returned as often as she repeated the experiment ; which 
is proof positive, that not even a trace of offensiveness lingerd in 
the breath. All her admirers, whom, to be sure, she only at- 
tracts for the sake of her husband's happiness, agree on that 



13 

point. "Well may she boast, that it seems to her as if she were 
freer now and more independent than in earlier years when she 
was so timid and bashful. Certainly, to carry this battery 
around and to have done away with the mephitic old snags of 
niggardly nature has given her a kind of boldness. She often 
wonders, she said, how the Lord can look down on Sundays 
and feast-days upon the singing masses in churches who open 
mouths which resemble so many pestiferous cloacae. It is an 
offense to the Allhigh. And, truly, she could not be severe 
enough against those companions of her own sex who approach 
husbands and others, intruding themselves with inexhaustible 
loquacity on the modestly, obliquely retreating husbands or liste- 
ners, pitilessly rushing upon and overpowering them with their 
fetid exhalations. That they call nature, love, hospitality. Not 
knowing what a pestiferous, air-impregnating pool they carry 
around with them, they sneer at the noble art and at the suffer- 
ing and self-abnegation which are imposed on its true practi- 
tioners for the benefit of others. She thought it but just, that the 
gorilla dentists should meet in convention and pass resolutions, 
as they recently did, that regular examinations be instituted 
and a diploma awarded to each aspirant to the profession, in 
order to obtain constitutional security against quacks. You 
must not laugh, because the members of that profession which 
. certainly requires the least knowledge, are the first to ask pro- 
tection for their minimum of knowledge, while the professors of 
the healing art do not seek it. But tliese, like gods wandering 
on earth, who cosmopolitan-like work only in wholesale, esteem 
themselves superior to that. Besides, they are also well aware 
that more die with physicians than without them. She said, 
were she willing, she could digress from the cardinal points, 
beauty and comfort, and take also in consideration secondary 
ones, such for example as the more effective nourishment of the 
body resulting from easy digestion, brought on by means of 
more thorough mastication. Are not sucklings mostly well nour- 
ished and round of form as long as they have no teeth ? And do 
not natural teeth come with pain and go with pain ? And does 
not pain break the constitution? All these observations led her 
to draw out the teeth of her children as soon as they cut them. 



u 

She has lived to experience in recent times the joyful satisfaction 
of seeing men of the educated class adopt her principle as a 
maxim. But, cowards as they are, they do not have their teeth 
extracted at once, but cause them to decay in an indirect 
manner by means of candies, etc. They will have, however, the 
small toe amputated in order to prevent corns, which interfere 
so much with walking. — Recently mankind have acted on a 
grand scale in the same manner in respect to argument and rea- 
son. Experiencing that human reasoning is accompanied now 
and tlien with error, they have in many provinces of science, as 
in that of religion, torn up reason, root and branch, together with 
search and inquiry, arid thrown the whole over-board, in order to 
quiet conscience, and kill the inseparable companion of thought 
— doubt — as soon as it arrives. And in doing so, they imagine 
to have found untarnished, eternal truth which ranks far above 
thought. — So even in politics, where it is impossible for every 
caviler to sound and measure the depth and breadth of things, 
the benefit of traditional, hereditary, royal, sacred wisdom is ex- 
perienced and the domain of thought, teeming with error, is 
abandoned and left as a privilege to a few initiated in, the 
mysteries. 

Then lady gorilla laid aside ear-rings, nose-rings, lip-rings, 
and also the bosoms already mentioned. She thought, more con- 
sistency is found with her sex than any one would dream of. 
Nature has taught that with the privileged on earth — and she 
added, "many are called, but few are chosen'' — that with tho 
selected ones the hands were created not for labor, but for grace, 
to please ; the feet not for walking and standing, but to be ad- 
mired and to be carried. So also the ears, nose and lips were 
created only to enhance the beauty of the individual, the breasts 
only to be admired. The ears call to mind only too often the 
same cropped members of a dog or the long ones of a don- 
key; tho nose, alas, too often a sooty chimney; the breast- 
flaps, a desolate, fallow field. That is the cause why they must 
be supported by art. Only few of her sex are favored with a na- 
tural mustache and beard like Mrs. Gorilla Kembeline SnaphoMshj, 
who, however, according to rumor, is a hybrid. — It is true, the 
husband has to work hard for all these fineries, in order to fur- 



15 

nish those of the latestf ashion. But by thus proving daily how 
dear her favor is to his heart, he secures to himself ever anew 
her love and esteem. She, in turn, rewards him daily with the 
assurance that of all admirers he is' the best, therefore the dear- 
est. Whenever, on returning from her chief daily occupation* 
shopping, she glowingly pictures to him what she has seen, she 
is sure to get it the next day. 

Plumpers, she said, she never Wore, as her artificial teeth 
produced sufficient fullness of cheek. 

In laying aside her Corset, she called the attention of the 
physician to the fact, that she could wear it smaller in the waist, 
should she wish. She does not experience any pressure, she 
says, although the numerous creases in the skin might suggest 
that. She is accustomed to it. To be sure, she observes that 
the lower region of the abdomen is growing somewhat fuller, 
and she has read that the organs, especially the uterus, are 
pressed down in the course of time. But, among the more 
cultivated classes, the whole of the womb has of late become a 
superfluous organ and exists more as a burden than a benefit, 
since her class, never using it as a bed for carrying young, are 
never in need of it. The task of the physician in this nine- 
teenth century, as he aims at true civilization and culture^ 
should be to annihilate it instead of continually resorting t6 
abortives, which endanger both him and her. For the ridi- 
culous law dating from the barbarous ages after the great flood, 
when propagation was deemed necessary, is still always in 
force, namely : as soon as the germ begins to develop, the fe- 
male gorilla must not be any longer mistress of her body, must 
allow the germ to grow nolens volens, par ordre du Mufti, and, 
should she even perish over it, must not remove it. Beautiful 
independence! Not to be lord of your own castle! Bufy 
she continued, how full of commiseration are these gorilla lords, 
and how careful when a vegetable life is at stake, that the 
gorilla embryo of eight or fourteen days, or of one or two 
months, be not ejected, ever threatening the poor female and her 
pitying, sympathizing friend with punishment and shame ! But 
when they gather to hunt down the lower animals, then you see 
them parading on their high horses, making a boast of their 



16 

cruelty. Again, when the object is war against their own species, 
he is the most eminent among them who — to quote the glowing 
expression of the Psalmist — is able to tread under foot, like the 
dust of the street, his own kind. The gorilla female, however, 
is forced by her weakness to accept the attentions of the male, 
and to be always subject to pains. She is forced not to take 
part in public councils on the weal and woe of her sex. She 
is, after marriage, systematically excluded from all pleasures at 
balls and theatres which, in the beginning, are held out as baits. 
Only look around in large cities and see how certain quarters 
are swarming with these crawling little insects. Verily, a person 
can not promenade there on Sundays and holidays, lest he crush 
a half dozen of these creatures under foot. These insect-quar- 
ters of every large city amply prove the fact that the working 
gorilla is anyway glad to do the work. Does she not seek and 
find her principal Sunday-amusement in it? Therefore, this 
business should be left entirely to the working gorilla, so that 
the noble one be not molested with such common avocations !— 

I saw then a most striking novelty, the pannier impe'ratrice, 
a steel basket over each hip, between which a lump bulges out 
far behind. This is only a foundation for puffy silk contrivances 
above. False calves, and two pairs of stockings fastened to the 
hips by a belt, and high-heeled gaiters completed the costume. 

During the medical examin ation of the gorilla, I retired to 
another room. Being alone with my thoughts, I deemed myself 
fortunate, first, not to belong to the gorilla species, and second, 
not to be obliged to marry such appendages, frames, wires, all 
of which, when taken away, usually leave only skin and bones, 
a dried-up frame impregnated with bodily and mental cor- 
ruption, and stuffed up and inflated with conceit and aspir- 
ations. 

I am convinced that a good deal of what the civilized male 
gorilla calls life, namely, pleasure and sorrow, is really nothing 
but a swinging around the circle of this padded and wadded 
ereature, which, as if it were by machinery of its own, smiles, 
laughs, cries, howls and talks, or keeps silent, runs or stands, 
and moves the limbs generally like a puppet, whose attracting 
and repulsing motions are made by pulling the wires on 



17 

which it is strung. The ambitious gorilla, who likes to be 
esteemed as civilized in general, and as being of standing in 
particular, feels joy or sorrow, thinks, broods, works day and 
night only for that object, be he king or commoner. Beat life 
has long ago ceased to be a matter of fact. Life subdued, made ex- 
tinct, is civilization. The manifestations of natural life and nature 
itself with its grandeur and sublimity, are ridiculed and made 
tributary to what they call courtesy — a synonym for their only 
science and art. For this science thousands of male and female 
gorillas work a whole life-time, and die away without even know- 
ing that they have lived. That is the rule. — 

I turned aside from this gorilla pack which styles itself civil- 
ized, cultivated, refined. But, when a comparison between 
them and mankind stole upon my mind, I quickly turned again 
for further observation of the institutions under which they 
carry on life. 

2 



THE gorilla prides itself on having religion. It adores 
supreme beings. Ha, ha, ha ! "What moil and toil ! What 
a singular devotion ! What a religion ! 

I assumed the task of investigating in general and particular 
the religion of the gorilla. In order to accomplish this, I have 
examined the theory of its creed. I have been present at both 
their public and private worship, and have observed the influence 
of it upon social and individual life. O great, sublime nature ] 
What desecration of thy majesty ! What a farce ! What jugglery! 
Mind, on which the gorilla prides itself, is only manifested in — 
astutely proving nonsense to be wisdom, in making plausible per- 
version, crookedness, senselessness : in elevating all this to the 
throne and in securing its supremacy. Nonsense sways the 
scepter exclusively, unlimitedly. All have to bend the knee 
before it, as before Apis of old, and have slavishly to supplicate 
and to worship in humiliation and mortification. All have to 
beg its gracious favor and indulgence, in constant self-conscious- 
ness of their own unworthiness, contemptible degradation and 
culpable, criminal abjectness. That is the worship proclaimed 
holy by hired agents. Lying and deceiving, stealing, robbing 
and murdering, on a grand scale and on a small: these are the 
tools that an exclusive egotism makes use of incessantly from 
morning till night and from night till morning. The manifest- 
ations on one side are hypocrisy and flattery, on the other, 
detailed maxims of law, the great number of which, ren- 
dering it impossible for any learned man of the profession 
to acquire them all, shows how necessary they are. And law 
and justice, and morals and religion, with all the worship and 
adoration, are but rags of modesty for ostentatious trash, for 
ridiculed chastity and purity, for veiled morality and honesty. 
So stands out the gorilla in the glory of civilization and culture 
as no other beast of the field. 



19 

The gorillas in Asia, Europe and America have their dif- 
ferent religions. The most civilized among them recognize to- 
day as a body the following high maxim as a principle of life . 

Thou must believe; believe Nonsense, Nonsense the 
most extraordinary, the most abominable. It k of no con- 
sequence even should all the sublime laws of nature be 
in crying contradiction to it. "Where religion sways, the 
laws of nature, truth, and right have no title. Religion 
derides nature, truth and right, and glories in the der- 
iding. 

Moreover, this animal is not created for verity. It 
must constantly be kept in submission. Order is best 
preserved on the one hand by religion, on the other by 
a well packed military and police-force. The former fur- 
nishes the muzzle, the latter the manacles for the animal. 

Now, one should suppose that this common band of almighty 
nonsense would congregate the professors of its creed as brethren 
and keep them some how in good order. But no ! The canaille, be- 
lie, steal, rob and murder one another from the rising until the 
setting of the sun ; do this individually and in the mass, under the 
sanction of justice and law, even while daily and hourly shout- 
ing exultations and calling on their respective gods to help them 
to tread under foot, as the dust of the earth, their adversaries. 
Adversary they call every brother who stands in their way, in 
the way of their success, progress, comfort, enrichment. The 
agents of the gods, clad in holy garments, with devoutly up- 
turned eyes, quietly sing laudations while their crushed breth- 
ren, crushed even to the exudation of the very marrow within 
their bones, are writhing and weeping in agony so as to move 
even a stone to pity. All, self-evidently, for the l^onor of 
God.— 

The bond, formed by mutual belief in nonsense, did not hold. 
But, if you suppose that these facts, continuing during thousands 
of years up to the present time, could now finally open the eyes 
of the gorilla, and lead it to conceive and comprehend, you are 
mistaken. That a religion, a doctrine, a creed tvhich everyivhere 



20 

continually, after the lapse of thousands of years, brings forth in 
perfection such fruit, is good for nothing: this the great crowd 
which boasts of intellect will not perceive. Bestiality and 
brutality have made it their business to destroy the workings of 
intellect precisely on this point. That it is even the derision of 
sublime nature, of its teachings and laws ; or, what is worse still, 
the hypocritical wheedling and cajoling exercised by means 
of rhetorical figures; the strut of nonsense and perversion; 
the impudent representation of paid lackeys, ignorant of nature ; 
which undermine and strangle true feelings for the sublime truths 
of high, majestic nature, and do not allow noble feelings and 
esteem, the only true love for brother and sister, to strike root 
or to spring up, they will not know. If you suppose, the gorilla 
who esteems himself preferred by God above all creatures, were 
fitted by religion to understand all this, know, on the contrary, 
that religion and its coadjutors directly unfit it : then, where- 
ever you may be, the fact ought to present itself to your mind 
of its vile egotism, of the lowness, contemptibleness in its aims, 
actions and dealings, of all its practices, of its entire life. Failing 
to recognize this, your error is grand, unpardonable, because you 
do not even perceive that it requires a human being to see 
that. But, the gorilla is no man, it is only a beast. 

The gorilla of modern times think their respective gods un- 
created, without beginning, without end. You madden the 
reason-endowed swarm as soon as you let fall the remark that 
nature is without beginning and without end. " 0, no !" it cries, 
" that must be created and, therefore, there must be a creator !" 
— "And he, who created it, who created him?" — "Ah, hm! 
Then you are an atheist!" The creature stares wildly at you. 
You are a dangerous person who dares to utter questions, 
ergo, you are a bad being who must be ejected from the com- 
munity, <a dangerous member of society whom all must shun and 
fly as they would the pestilence, if they would not be infected 
themselves with this plague. You must be branded, in order 
that every one can know you from afar. From this time forth, 
you will be pointed at with derision, and youth will fly you 
as if you were the devil himself. — Deplorable beast ! It claims 
to be endowed with reason ! And the simplest, soberest 



21 

question, merely a shadow of logic, drives it to desperation 
madness, to persecution and extirpation of its own species. 
Very cannibals ! How far the beast is still below man ! But 
it seems, in fact, to have learned something from him. It 
intends only to keep its and its brothers' innocence and holy 
simplicity uninjured, untarnished, only to serve its temporal 
and eternal weal ; and, if either of these must be sacrificed, it 
yields the temporal rather than the eternal — but, that of his be- 
loved brothe r, to be sure. How it coquets, the wily creature ! It 
knows already, by Jove, how to play with such words as inno- 
cence, simplicity, and fawns on its holy, sanctimonious church- 
lackey like a purring cat with gratefully arched back and tail 
when stroked. And the lackey strokes it heavily, I tell you, 
heavily enough to make sparks fly. 

The relations between the gorilla and its gods are fixed by 
contract. I have noticed, that in particular one great species 
of the gorilla which existed more then four thousand years ago, 
entered into a conteact or bakgain with its God. According to 
the book which is called the book of books, both the gorilla 
and its God seem to have frequently behaved toward each other 
like naughty, stubborn, envious, ill-bred brats. What chiefly 
attracts the attention is the contract which was formally con- 
cluded between the parties. The gorilla-god formally made 
known his conditions before the bargain was closed, for the ful- 
fillment of which he promised happiness. The gorilla formally 
convened, accepted, without reservation. The contract was con- 
cluded at the foot of a mountain in Asia, the ceremonies being 
conducted by both parties in person. The gorilla was clad in fes- 
tive garments; the gorilla-god, radiant in majesty, thundering 
and lightening, enveloped in a cloud of glory, pronounced the 
words so terribly, frightfully loud that the gorilla, trembling 
with fear, refused to transact the matter personally, but pre- 
ferred to make use of an intermediary. It was stipulated, that 
the contract should be binding oh all gorilla generations to come. 
Therefore, even the gorillas of the present day, consider them- 
selves bound by it. Were they men, they would know that 
such stipulations are in opposition to inalienable rights — henco 
invalid. But, that is the pomt, they are not men. 



22 

The various stipulations of the contract are of such a nature, 
however, that, if you overlook some absurdities and weaknesses 
which may be attributed to the spirit of that age and the pe- 
culiar condition of the gorilla of those times, they might be 
readily adopted as 

The elementary teachings of the laws of nature, applied 
to individual and social life. 

"Why has the gorilla not continued to build upon this foun- 
dation, notwithstanding such was the condition ? Has the crea- 
ture, although separated from the surrounding Philistians, been 
infected by them ? Does it still ogle them to this day ? We 
shall see. 

The old book, which contains the stipulations with a full 
historical narration of how the contract was long in preparation 
and finally concluded, calls itself "Teaching" A significant, 
recommendable word, undoubtedly. Neither religion nor creed 
shall or will it be. The book commands that Inquiry, Wisdom, 
Conviction he your aim and aspiration. It teaches. The Teach- 
ing demands conviction which results from Doubt, Search, 
Scrutiny. It teaches institutions for the life of the individual, 
for the life of society. As a part of such, it teaches first legal 
doctrines, and opens with that of most sublime freedom. Then, 
the doctrines of health, morals, administration, warfare, etc. It 
deduces every thing from a first Great Cause, to which no name, 
no figure, no form is attributed, because it is unique, hence in- 
comparable and not liable to be confounded. — "What is it that 
this doctrine asks of those who profess it? Laboriousness, 
bodily and mental, unremitting and cheerful. Labor everywhere, 
for the institutions comprehend all nature and all science. They 
directly exclude just what others impose as a duty, namely, literal 
belief in established authorities — stand-still. Should the gorilla, 
having passed the years of childhood, resign inquiry and research 
and instead of that believe, it would sin against cardinal laws and 
not be allowed to call itself a professor, a true adherent of the 
Teaching. The glory of the Teaching is that it raises its pro- 
fessors to the position of rational beings, and promises them in 
all cases, even when they are persecuted, the reputation of be- 



23 

ing eminently rational, educated creatures. The descendants 
are still proud of that to this day. As the Teaching does not es- 
tablish belief as a doctrine, it does not fable about a Hereafter ; 
because vision and fiction lie beyond the boundaries of knowl- 
edge. You do not even find the word Hereafter in the Teach- 
ing. It treats exclusively of life, true life, and is too practical to 
rob itself of the ground from under the feet, or to allow essential 
life to be absorbed by an imaginary one, or to sacrifice one for 
the other, to hypocritically condemn, the life of reality, with all 
its aims and struggles, when compared with the life of mere 
phantasy. Therefore, it goes so far in its exalted ideas of truth 
and scrutiny that those teachers who inculcate fiction for real- 
ities and non-essential things for essential ones, are threatened 
in its code with death. How many gorilla rabbis of to-day 
deserve death for violating this law of the Teaching, as whose re- 
presentatives they take payment — teaching a heavenly kingdom 
to which they transfer reward and punishment — falsely promul- 
gating as religion non-essentials for realities, and falsely declar- 
ing them to be integrant parts of the Teaching ! But these rabbis 
are hybrids, half fowl, half fish. They ogle one doctrine while 
professing the other; burning for belief, they are zealous for 
science ; loving the Below with all its pomp and pride, they would 
like also to take possession of the Great Above ; they whine for a 
future while despising the present, though, in the greatest of 
trials and tribulations they are never ready to give up, if it be 
within their power, a brief span of the time Below. They are 
hypocrites. You know the miserable creatures by their gait and 
carriage, by their grimaces," by their tone, speech, and action. 
You must disdain them. Let them be an abomination unto you. 
A ban is upon tJwm ! — words of the Teaching. 

The foundation of the Teaching rests upon two corner- 
stones : labor and freedom. But not labor as a burden, molest- 
ation, drudgery. Labor as a voluntary exertion. Labor as 
enjoyment. Laboriousness of the entire individual; strenuous 
exertion of all the energies ; whether sitting or walking, stand- 
ing or lying, your aiming and striving must be for work. Your 
reward, your enjoyment be work. "Thy granaries shall be 
filled, thou wilt have to live on. Thou wilt preserve health. 



24: 

Disease will not easily befall thee, for thy blood is pure and 
strong;" continual activity secures good circulation and power- 
ful reactiveness against incidental, detrimental influences from 
without, against disease in general. Melancholy will not abide 
within you ; for, cheerful laboriousness, good appetite, vigorous 
digestion are deadly enemies of bad humor and drive away even 
accidental dejection. 

The gorilla should day by day perceive more clearly the 
purpose of his existence to. consist in the pure enjoyment, the 
entire satisfaction, and the true relish which emanate from 
researching and understanding the institutions ; in the inquiry 
after and discovery of the laws of the Great All as well as of the 
position of gorilla in it as the most gifted of all creatures in the 
realm of intellect ; in fixing and establishing consequential, nor- 
mal maxims ; and in living accordingly. It is evident that study, 
knowledge and adaptation of the rules of life are utterly im- 
possible without a deep, sincere appreciation of the Great All as 
well as of every thing of which it consists — of the soil on which 
you tread, of the air, warmth and light in which you breathe of 
the animal and vegetable kingdom through which and with 
which you live. This appreciation is the ground- work of love, 
inextinguishable love, is love itself. As an integrant £art of your 
energies and faculties, it consequently is an integrant part of 
yourself, of your existence, of the destiny of your life. You can 
exist without it as little as without labor, without enjoyment of 
life. Think it away and you will miss something essential. 
Life would be a void, a nonentity. Hence, emanating from this 
appreciation, liberty, the other pillar of the Teaching. 

The contract, therefore, into which gorilla entered with his 
God four thousand years ago, stipulates among the duties which 
gorilla took upon himself, nothing in reality but the constant 
fulfillment of the qualities and the unremitting exertion of the 
energies which constitute his nature, and without which his 
existence even is inconceivable. Now, if a compact implies that 
equivalents be promised for services rendered, in what then did 
the equivalents consist which gorilla God formally promised as 
such? Simply in all the natural consequences which result 
from a natural life. Call them mere consequences, but not 



25 

otherwise as you call attraction a property of the magnet Call 
them, if you choose, reward. But remember immediately that 
this appellation is a metaphor which may lead to erroneous 
conceptions, to idolatry. This the ancient gorilla held in view 
when he admonished the sages : " Ye wise men, be careful of 
your words while teaching," for no errors are so dangerous as 
those of great men. Hence the obligations of the gorilla com- 
prehend nothing more or less than natural life, existence as 
rational creatures. But the rights comprehend the reflex of 
this existence, self-consciousness, acknowledgment, appreciation, 
esteem and love. So labor and freedom is at the same time 
prosperity and enjoyment, hence duty and recompense at once. 

"Thou shalt grow old, and thy days shall be filled" is -said 
with as much truth as beauty in this first Teaching. And so 
died the aged gorillas of former times, u old and full of years." 
Ah, truly, they found the world beautiful, even when suffering 
hardships and miseries. The beautiful world did not seem to 
them an abode of misery. They did not yearn for anything 
better or more beautiful. The world, the beautiful, sublime, 
glorious world, had satisfied them. — Away then with the infatua- 
tion of a heavenly kingdom belonging to the gorillas of modern 
times, the never satisfied, the insatiable ! Give the creature the 
entire great world ; give it land and sea, and mountain and valley, 
and streams and rivers ; give it light and air, and thunder and 
lightening, and rain and drought, and warmth and cold; give it 
sun, moon and star — the entire magnificence of the universe ; 
add thereto what the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms 
in the depth of the sea, as well as on the height of the mountain, 
in the solitudes, steppes and deserts, as well as what the laugh- 
ing fields of rich zones offer — and all, all has been given; — 
it suffices not. The creature despises what it possesses. It 
yearns for more. What it has, satisfies not ; for what it yearns, 
it knows not. And while it is still struggling and striving in 
covetous avidity and insatiable greed, the creature — behold, the 
universe before him has slipped away — the great, beautiful, glo- 
rious, majestic world ! — Deplorable animal ! poor and barren 
it stands there, as poor and as barren as if it had never lived ! 

Dost thou not, man, rejoice at thy human dignity ? Dost 



26 

thou not rejoice at thy life in a boundless paradise, at thy en- 
deavours and activity, thy high, noble emotions and exertions ? 
Dost thou not truly feel thyself elevated above the beast, which 
permits the conceited, hollow-eyed popes to rob it of the world 
of realities, the glorious, majestic world, and to entrance it with 
a chimerical world, merely to put it in leading strings for their 
guidance ? 

Four thousand years later, the gorilla in America erected a 
constitutional structure on the same foundation of labor and 
freedom. Like the builders of old, the fathers of the new consti- 
tution found slavery, though only partial. Both structures were 
threatened through slavery with destruction. But, while the old 
builder refused to erect, even to begin his structure, before 
slavery was abolished, the latter carelessly put up theirs in the 
midst of sanctioned slavery. Therefore, the hybrid of freedom 
and slavery soon became a ridicule. Seclusion was in the be- 
ginning an advantage to both. That of the former was secured 
by the wilderness, which he had to conquer ; that of the latter 
by the two oceans given by nature. But the old teacher soon 
had to complain of backslidings into former habits of slavery : 

" They have turned aside quickly from the way which 
I commanded them ; they have made them a molten calf, 
; have worshipped it and said : these are thy gods which 

have brought thee up out of the land of slavery." 

Knowing the danger, he did not neglect to immediately 
sound the alarm and pitilessly to extirpate the evil, though not 
compelled, being safe in the seclusion. 

How totally different in the new country! First, freedom 
amorously glancing at perfect slavery. Then, after immorality 
had everywhere struck root, a separation of classes taken place 
and a depreciation of labor had prevailed like a plague, sudden 
abolishment of slavery par ordre — forcible elevation of those, 
previously subjected without their possessing adequate educa- 
tion. — Robbing one party, enriching another by caressing the? 
crushed third, which meanwhile has grown indifferent with re- 
gard to itself: these are the fruits which already betray the 
decayed state of the trunk, and total absence of teaching. Ah, it 



27 

is easier, the gorilla thought, to eat bread without earning it in 
the sweat of the brow. Promptly the complacent sages declared 
this interpretation to be in harmony with the true sense of the 
Teaching ; for the real meaning of the text is : " Thou shalt eat 
until the sweat rolls from thy brow !" Law for popes and all other 
drones. — Work itself is not honorable, it is a curse, a punish- 
ment : therefore, for the low class, the common herd. Hence- 
forth, the civilized gorilla calls consuming higher activity, higher 
labor, and looks condescendingly, pityingly, contemptuously 
upon mental and bodily labor. And so they have long per- 
verted the natural energies. They have made the involuntary 
functions of their bodies as well as those of the stomach, skin, 
and so forth, exclusively voluntary. They work for them in their 
confined coralline life. For them they struggle, strive, think 
and brood. That they cultivate. So, indeed, they work. They 
live for eating and drinking, and for the artificial cultivation of 
their shin, while the true laborer leaves all that to nature. He 
lives from within out ; the other, the drone, the cultivated gorilla, 
plasters, smears all on the outside. The civilized gorilla, there^ 
fore, eats not to live — the gorilla lives to eat. That's one of the 
criterions by which to distinguish gorilla of refinement from man! 

And it boasts of having reason, the gorilla ! It brags that 
it possesses soul such as no created being has ! Name me an 
animal which so distorts, so misuses its instinct! And men, 
reason-endowed men, descend from it, says gorilla ! Truly, they 
should glow with shame ! — 

"Under these circumstances, it could not fail that for the re- 
fined gorilla, estranged from the relish of hard labor, nay, dis- 
liking it, another kind of labor more recompensing, and with it 
another purpose of a more insinuative kind, had to be invented. 
TJie heavenly kingdom zoas invented as a place of eternal, blissful 
enjoyment. The title to it was awarded, not to the many who 
were called to labor, but to" the "few who were chosen" as a 
reward to the labor-ioeary for drudgery and misery in the sorrow- 
ful vale of life — as a reward to all who came short of something in 
life. But short come all, for no one works cheerfully with all 
his energies. So none, in fact, have a right to expect anything. 
But the indulgent lackey teaching helps them along on the broad 



28 

comfortable way to enslavement and bondage. Says he: As 
nobody has to demand anything, so what was formerly a stipu- 
lation of the contract, is to-day mere grace. Being grace, it 
must be implored and begged for, with constant acknowledg- 
ment of unworthiness, depravity, and abjectness. 

Reader, I will give you here a goodly specimen of ejacul- 
atory prayer extracted from the gorilla prayer-book, so you 
may know how the animal now deals with its God. 

"Beloved God, give me children." (Indeed, the caricature looks 
as earnestly as if its God should veritably be implored to guide 
the proper organs of each party aright, and to bless the result.)' 
Further: "But, Lord! should I he too toeak in the crupper, 
and have to endure too many pains, tlien rather give me none. 1 ' 
(Very excusable ! Only instinctive self-preservation, as the 
shirt is nearer than the skirt.) Further : "Although children con- 
tribute to the happiness of marriage" (the gorilla understands 
how to present its arguments clearly to its God) "I renounce the 
hope for them, and bear my fate," (beautiful devotion!) " convinced 
that thou hast thus ordained it in thy just counsel, in thy eternal tvis- 
dom." (What modesty, what devotion ! How charmingly lady 
gorilla knows how to natter the Lord.) Further: "Therefore, 
knowing Jwio short-sighted mortals are in their counsels, and that 
wliat they wish is often to their own detriment, I shall abstain from 
wishing at aU." (Aye, that revolts me! The creature knew that 
before. Why did it not from the very beginning hold its 
peace ? Coquets to the very last with bashfulness, humbleness, 
lowliness.) Finally : "Lord thy will be done as thou in thy eter- 
nal wisdom hast deemed best!" (Truly? I believe it, indeed. 
Eternal wisdom ? Ah, for a gorilla-brat ! — ) 

Is there a man to be found, be he ever so uneducated, who 
would not blush at such buffoonery ? The cultivated gorilla sees 
and knows all this very well. But he and the hired lackeys and 
gorilla Bamboozle join only to keep the foolish laborers nicely 
tamed into submission. The rabble ought not to think. They 
feel well at being able to pray to their Gods, manufactured 
blocks, and when they think that these listen. And that the 
Gods do so, punctiliously and gracefully, is the care of the hired 
lackey. Sweet creature, what could it desire more ! — 



29 

Once on the- way to erect a new structure which, based 
on reveries, would open a passage for the entrance and 
exit of the most extravagant imagination, and which would 
exempt the manual laborer from the labor of thought and the 
manfully active from bodily labor, it was not found difficult to 
invent a soul for the heavenly abode and to excogitate for the 
independence of such a soul a body, soulless and barren of 
energies. All this the gorilla alone, in infinite preference to 
other beasts of the field, possesses now completely. The rest, in 
lieu of this, have to be content with the word instinct, allotted 
to them by the exalted gorilla. Otherwise they would claim a 
soul also, perhaps even be sagaciously on the lookout to secure 
a berth in heaven ! But, as no one who has retained a spark of 
intellect, can even remotely suspect that such beasts as asses 
and monkeys, rhinocerosses, pigs, lice and fleas, could have the 
same right to a Hereafter as a lovely, lisping, red or black gorilla 
babe has, the logical deduction is, that the former are minus 
soul, created, on the contrary, only to die and rot. Therefore, 
it is self-evident, that all thought and deliberation, all mind and 
ingenuity, all will, intention and resolution, which are found in 
beasts like the elephant, horse, ape, dog, etc., can be accounted 
for only as phenomena of that happily invented quality, instinct, 
but can never even be compared with the lisping of a gorilla 
babe. For even this lisping secures eternity! And should the 
gorilla offspring prove to be dead in the casting, yet it inherits 
eternity — think — everlasting duration ! — 

It may, perhaps, be surprising to observe that threefold 
crimes were committed in thus forcibly unhinging the old 
Teaching, nay, in fact abandoning it. And for all that, it 
seems as if the gorilla leaders hardly intended this ; on the con- 
trary, they designed, perhaps, to establish the Teaching more 
firmly. But, cultivating only one branch, morals, while neglect- 
ing, ignoring all the others — perhaps, because they already 
existed in satisfactory completeness — and passing this one for 
the whole and allowing it to be believed as such ; besides, us- 
ing a dangerous, lubricous, convertible, allegorical language, and 
speaking in elastic, ambiguous parables, they lived in eccentri- 
cities,in extremes, which, contrasted greatly with the simplicity, 



30 

verity, with the intrinsic merits of the Teaching. "While acting 
thus, they always placed the individual self in the foreground, 
either by mysteriously, anxiously figuring out genealogical de- 
monstrations, or by charlatanery and jugglery, attracting in 
this manner the attention of the gaping ignorant mass : a course, 
disgusting and distasteful to any rational creature. So they 
always confound the self with the object, which practice is in 
diametrical contradiction with the old Teaching and, besides, 
highly criminal. 

The first crime is against the laivs of eternal truth itself, against 
the truth of tlie eternal laws of nature. 

The second against life, against existence and activity in the 
Great All as a means and end. 

The third is against aim and execution. 

And will you not forcibly close your eyes, a la gorilla Bam- 
boozle with his " Canon," you will soon perceive a fourth crime, 
resulting from the others, namely, the tricky imposition of falsi- 
ties as truths ; of things which are not clearly comprehensible to 
the juggler himself, because beyond the boundaries of knowl- 
edge ; and, by means of jugglery, the debasement to slavishness, 
ignominious self-contempt, infamous self-condemnation. Now 
look at the statutes of the old code, the writings of the Teaching, 
and compare. The severe penalty of death is put upon such 
a crime. And does it chance to be no crime to trample under 
foot intellect, noble pride, dignity, the grandeur of eternal truth 
and freedom whilst inculcating disdainful idolatry ? 

Against the Teaching : 

Doubt, Search, Comprehension, each was eradicated, con- 
demned. Instead of these, there was henceforth Belief — Belief 
which grins abominable, frightful mockery at all and every truth 
of nature; which exacts that nonentity be accepted as entity, 
nonsense as sense, delusion as truth, phantasies as realities; 
belief which exacts that forbidden intercourse, vice, be sancti- 
fied as virtue, unchastity as chastity, flagrant trespass of law 
as sublime, legitimate action; demands that the seeing affect 
blindness, the knowing ignorance. And all this, pervaded with 
impurity and obscenity, as the base of idolatry. In order that 
no one dare mention the obscenity, they have later drawn 



31 

a line around it, and insolently imposed as a canon of faith that 
incontinence be considered immaculateness. But the command 
was given to reason itself not to think beyond the boundaries of 
this statute, on peril of soul and salvation, of temporal and 
eternal weal. — Therefore, gorilla Bamboozle holds this canon 
tightly clasped with both claws. Canonical religion, he teaches, 
must be believed, and philosophical likewise. Therefore, do not 
touch either, but plod on slave ! Good for gorilla Bamboozle's 
civilized, cultivated nineteenth century. So much for the basis. 
For the opening and development of the discipline, sit venia 
verbo, labor is considered as pain and drudgery, earth as a vale 
of tears ; acquisition through work is despicable possession. 
Beward is only in the future. "What is the future? "Know 
not!" Much knowledge affects the head. What kind of re- 
ward will be given there? "Know not." "All I know," says the 
new discipline, "is, the gorilla-god, with arbitrary choice and 
preference, measures out reward according to the maxim, " but 
few are chosen." Therefore, not even a shadow of the justice of 
the old Teaching is retained, no harmony with life or earthly 
aspirations. Disharmony everywhere — opposition to exertion, 
reality, truth. Eccentricity, phantasmagoria, castles in the air 
instead of stability, truth, reality, life, exertion, the Teaching, 
nature, law of nature. The reader will comprehend now why 
the gorilla popes strive with such subtle adroitness and sancti- 
monious holiness that this maxim, this canon : 

DO NOT STIR IT, DO NOT TOUCH IT! 

be considered sacred. If deeply imbued with faith, it dares not 
even steal upon you that anything could be "rotten in the 
state." Then you are blessed ! Could it fail then, that doubt, 
aspiration after knowledge and science, that the discovery of 
the eternal laws of nature, that even the truths themselves in 
the kingdom of nature, were odious, condemned, and their vota- 
ries shunned like pestilence, and remorselessly tortured with 
every instrument that malice could invent ? 

And life ! Were not acquisition and possession doomed ? 
But, are not the poor as well as the rich daily striving, even 
obliged to acquire, save, possess ? "Were not the possessors al- 



32 

ways, and are they not still, the mighty ones — the bucks ? Does 
not every one struggle to live, to prolong his life, to guard it, 
even from sickness, if possible ? Is not the pope always a pro- 
minent example 'of attachment to this life, to its amenities 
and chattels? Why does he not practice what he teaches? 
Why does he not caressingly embrace disease as the safest guide 
to the beloved, long looked for, ever welcome death? Why does 
he not, as a devoted leader, pack on his back all the beloved on 
earth, and trudge off with them to the glorious kingdom Hurly- 
Burly ? — Was not life itself, root and branch, thus violently torn 
from its foundation ? And what for ? To hurl away the entire 
present, the entire veritable existence, in order to cling to a 
chimerical substitute, extramundane, transcendental ; to a child- 
ish hocus-pocus ; to a whirl of hurly-burly. Pure swindle. 

And your chief work here, at least the greater part of it, nine 
tenths of your workings and doings, of your contrivances and 
executions ? Continually whining and fawning, in humiliation and 
dolefulness, for — grace, grace, grace ! Having that, you have alL 
That is the sum total of all this ado. Yet, all your merits can 
not obtain it. Arbitrarily will it be bestowed only upon the 
chosen ones. Clad in sack-cloth and ashes, with your own un- 
worthiness continually before your eyes, your degradation upon 
the lip, your abjectness at heart, your confessions on the ton- 
gue, you must beg, beseech, whine and fawn, melted in humili- 
ation. Because there Above, court is always in sitting. As 
soon as you are mouldered, judgment is uttered not only on 
all you have done and omitted, but also on all your forefathers' 
trespasses committed in thought and action, on all they have 
entailed on you while you were still in the mother-lap, on all 
that with which they have contaminated your blood. According 
to all this, sentence is passed for eternal life, for condemnation, 
or for degradation. Strive for the first by being good and brave, 
and to the mote eternal existence is secured ! Sweet maccaroni 
for the babe ! But with this difference, the babe knows what it 
has, whilst the gorilla swell does not know what eternal ex- 
istence actually is or promises. Is it everlasting singing and 
praying? — Is it the joy of understanding immediately the 
truth of all mysteries ? How tedious vast eternity after knowl- 



33 

edge bestowed so suddenly ! — Or is it endless search and study? 
If so, why then do you not begin that here and continue it 
steadily, strenuously, instead of the unworthy, time-killing 
lamentations, entreaties and psalm-singing ? 

Act so, they say, that you may escape punishment hereafter. 
Therefore, on one hand, let continual fear and horror of the ter- 
rible punishment, and on the other, sweet, superabundant yearn- 
ings for the continuation of your individuality, guide all your 
steps. — Are not these miserable, despisable motives? Truly, 
good enough for so common a creature ! But then, it should 
not be so arrogant as to claim cultivation, education, honor and 
honesty. — Besides all this, you must constantly remember that 
you sin every moment, either willingly or unwillingly, know- 
ingly or unknowingly, and thus become every moment anew 
a criminal, a death-deserving evil-doer who must consider it 
pure grace to be permitted even to live in this vale of sorrow. 
For that then be grateful, and sing, pray and beg for gracious 
continuation. — Therefore, with your own unworthiness and ras- 
cality before your eyes, conscious of the original sin which was 
within you when you lay yet undone — as it were, raw — within 
the mother-lap, filth-laden as you stand out, you have to con- 
vince yourself that, considering the impurity which marks you, 
it is solely the intercession of somebody else that has worked out 
for you the gracious right to be permitted to supplicate in sack- 
cloth and ashes creeping, howling, whining and fawning, for 
grace; the right to be permitted , in self-consciousness of ig- 
nominy, incarnate vileness and rascality — the brand on the fore- 
head — to pray everlastingly ! 

Verily, it takes the stomach of a gorilla to digest such food,, 
and the greatest arrogance and insolence of the most inflated 
strut of all struts to show himself thus before man, call the 
nonsense as you may — canonical, transcendental, philosophical, 
or supernatural, as gorilla Bamboozle would ever do. And he 
is zealous, he says, in the cause of liberty ! and he represents 
reason and struggles against bondage ! — 0, hypocrisy ! O, flat- 
tery ! But he knows, they are sheep to whom he speaks. 

Pray, dear reader, be composed. Did I not say in the be- 
ginning that the gorilla animal, it is true, boasts of reason and 

3 



34 

proudly displays it in its manners, whenever it prates about cul- 
ture ? But in its acts, nature is represented only as a veritable 
caricature. 

You have already learned something of its ridiculous capers, 
but far from even a tithe of the complete ridiculousness and pre- 
posterousness. Let it further display itself before you in all its 
full-swelling grandeur — the gorilla creature. 

The old Teaching had thus been shaken, remodelled : 

Taught the old: "Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt 
return" and nothing further, the new taught : " Thou art only half 
of dust, and that half shall return to dust, the other half goes 
above." — Research and Inquiry, Reason in general, were no 
longer enthroned, but complete, stable Belief. The doctrine 
of appreciation and respect for all beings, as possessing equal 
rights, could be valid no longer, because professions of self-unworthi- 
ness and abjectness constituted the fundamental conditions of moral 
life, and because predestination arbitrarily decided the destiny 
of existence — thus, instead of true love, there is mere toleration. 

The so established faith was death of the Teaching, death 
in life, stand-still, stagnation of progress. 

The belief itself was outrageous idolatry. "What it demanded 
was slavery, both bodily and mental, the most dishonorable, 
.revolting slavery. 

But the creature loved indolence, was sunk in slothfullness, 
and, being thus abandoned to inactivity, did not feel the dis- 
grace, the humiliation. The well-paid lackeys adapted the creed 
exactly to the height and depth of the individual taste for ease 
and comfort. But, while the lackey, with measure in hand, and 
.mindful of the fact that the same proportion does not answer 
_Ior.aH, measures off with unctuous, subtle, wily, hypocritical, 
tenderly compassionating countenance every one's portion of 
the joyful or the sorrowful kingdom to come, he, melted in 
humiliation, measures for himself the kingdom of earth. 

Gorilla narrates, that a professor of the old Teaching, 
cconceived of a woman, but begot, if you can credit the fable, 
like Zoroaster of old, by no one, set himself up as an ex- 
pounder of the old Teaching. He diverted the deep flow of 
its waters into such capillary ramifications, contracted chan- 



35 

nels, that, finally, nothing remained of the exuberant source 
but mist and clouds. As mentioned above, the code of the 
Teaching threatens with death the teacher who would inculcate 
unreal, unsubstantial, unessential things, mere phantasies, 
instead of truth and reality. "We have seen, that manifold crimes 
were committed. "We have convinced ourselves, said the old 
gorilla, that even the foundation was torn fr^n under the feet 
of the disciples of the old Teaching ; that the reformer — no, this 
he disclaimed to be — that the expounder left the gorilla, during 
the length of its life, swinging, suspended between heaven and 
earth. But this could not possibly correspond with what the 
lords of creation expected from their existence. According to the 
law in force, penalty of death was decreed after due inquiry had 
taken place. And, my authority gently adds, even now, should 
further proof of the aberration from the Teaching be needed, you 
will easily find it wherever you may cast your eye— in the ideas 
and doings of the modern gorilla tribes who profess a faith, a re- 
ligion, based on the said teacher's doctrines. Reader, you find 
them set forth in these pages. And although eighteen centuries have 
passed away since his death, and the so-called "religion or love" 

HAS BEEN DISSEMINATED IN CANNIBAL RAGE BY MEANS OF FIRE AND 
SWORD AND EVERY TORTURE, AS WELL AS IN THE MOST REFINED MANNER 
THROUGH SUBTLE DEVICES AND HYPOCRITICAL TRICKS , TRULY, TRULY, 
YOU DARE NOT SAY, THAT EVEN THE COMMENCEMENT HAS BEEN MADE 
OF A NORMAL LIFE EITHER OF THE INDIVIDUAL OR OF S0CTETY ! 

But if you wish to verify the maxim, "A tree is known by its 
fruit," you would, beyond all doubt, have to acknowledge that re- 
ligion is good for nothing except to obstruct the way to truth with 
delusion and error. If you do not consider the above mentioned 
facts theoretically and practically sufficient proof, then the follow- 
ing representation of the gorilla's collective and individual life 
and aims will certainly convince. But the animal trots along as 
if it wore blinds. In native idleness of thought, it will neither 
see nor hear. Greedy of enjoyment, it contemptuously spurns re- 
search a la gorilla Bamboozle, and in self -compensation for that 
arrogates the privilege — of preaching reason to others and of ridi- 
culing them.— 

Had the preacher of penalty and penance, when he, in his 



36 

narrow compass of view, sacrified the great Teaching — which 
treats of the combined energies of the creature in relation to 
the world — for his sermons on penalty and penance, considered, 
though wrongly, that these contained the essence of the Teach- 
ing, he might, perhaps, find an excuse for supposing them the 
most necessary at those times, from the fact that the Teaching 
existed long ago as a ground-work for all others ; therefore, ac- 
cording to his assurances, it should remain intact and even be 
strengthened. Like some other preachers of repentance taught 
long before his time, but who, as seers reached an immeasurably 
higher lyric flight, mastered the harp far more cunningly and 
stood on the same field as great and greater than he. But, push- 
ing his philanthropy and abstract ideas to excess, and acting 
blindly in tl^ese excesses, he, while grasping, as it were, the egg 
in the hand, let fly the hen. In tearing life and creature from the 
Teaching, and the Teaching from life and creature, and in sys- 
tematically, determinedly working toward such an end, consists 
his crime. And for this he suffered death, by virtue of the es - 
tablished law pronounced sacred by himself, and not for preaching 
penalties, not for his half-true parables, not for his exorcisms, 
not for his miracles.— 

Nobody took offense. Law had had its course. Law was 
appeased. Scarcely an historian of that time mentions his name. 
Behold ! Centuries afterwards gorilla popes practiced a fraud 
similar to the one perpetrated by some of the fraternity under 
the gorilla king Josiah. Namely, well considering that if they 
could only appear before the public while at the high tide of 
power with a written document in hand to establish their dog- 
mas, they would be able to keep in abeyance for a long time 
the power of the rivaling priests : they suddenly presented 
themselves before the king with such a manuscript, saying: 
"Behold, this we have found!" And the king, recognizing (?) 
the long lost Teaching, rent his garments, and published the 
knowledge thereof throughout the land. — A specimen of gorilla 
priest-craft ! — In this behold and acknowledge the entire, powerful 
proof of the genuineness of the old Teaching, the basis of the new 
Testament ! What a basis ! — Just so, but in an incomparably 
more intricate manner, played the later popes centuries after 



37 

the death of their master. They laid their foundation with a 
book newly manufactured, full of contradictions, full of incom- 
prehensible phrases, full of absurdities. They forged an amal- 
gamation of unities and pluralities with the pronounced resolution 
in future to pass that off as the true faith, as the doctrine of the 
master, and to impose it on tlie credulity of the goriUa public. 

Henceforth, the gorilla no longer possesses Teaching. It 
has Creeds, called Eeligions. 

First stands prominent the belief in two omnipotent Gods — 
dualism. One represents all the good, that is, such things as 
are considered good, temporarily pleasant, by the different 
gorilla tribes : God — Ormuzd. The other represents all that 
is contrary to their taste, inclination, and advantage, and is 
called Devil — Arihnian; he is, therefore, representative of all 
that they style bad, that is, of all that suits not their wishes — 
at times rain and then again sunshine, then heat, then cold. 
Gorilla-god is mightier than gorilla-devil, but whenever the 
latter presents himself, the former allows him to play the devil 
with the gorillas, to harrass and torture them to his heart's 
delight. Although it is said that long ago the son of the go- 
rilla-god trampled the devil's neck under foot, still the old boy 
merrily, irrepressibly whips around, and although the Lord has 
driven crowds of devils into flocks of swine, and so forth, still, 
to this day there remain enough of the old one's emissaries 
within the gorillas to plague them more than so many tape- 
worms could ever do. 

Then follows the belief in three separate deities — Trinity— 
gorilla-god-father, gorilla-god-son, gorilla-god-holy-ghost. With 
these three, the gorilla pope plays off on the mass like a man 
with a raree-show. Peep in, there are three. Turn a little, 'tis 
one ! Turn again, there are two ! Did I ever see in all my life 
so practical a thing ! Does exactly as he wishes, and lo ! it 
always succeeds! Bomb-proof the brazen-faced gorilla now 
asserts, that it believes in but one God. It makes you peep in the 
show, behold, there is but one! Theory and practice agree, 
experiment proves. What a showman! Calamities suddenly 
befall the gorilla. It has supplications to utter, feels itself op- 
pressed, has rackings of the body and gripes of the mind, 



38 

besides a few other aches and ailments here and there ; gorilla 
sensibly feels that mediation would be advantageous. The 
showman comes with his show. He turns. Lo ! there are two. 
gorilla-god-son, at the right of gorilla-god-father, intercedes. 
Believe, heaven is witness, two separate individuals ! — You now, 
finally, comprehend how under the circumstances with mathe- 
matical accuracy, one is as much as two, and three as much as 
one. Thus the matter stands in religion, be it well understood. 
In business-life ? Ha, ha, ha ! Do not on any account take the 
gorilla for a being so consummately stupid! It does not let 
you throw dust into its eyes. 

Then comes the belief in Mrs. Joseph, the gorilla-god-holy- 
ghost's sweetheart, as a convenient mediatrix in feminine needs 
and affairs. Holy, of course ! 

Belief in a number of half -holy and completely holy beings — 
useful, too, for mediation. 

You may regard all combined as forming the Court above. 

Belief in heaven and hell. Important, as we have seen, to 
preserve quiet, order and submission ! 

Belief in a life hereafter, after gorilla is stiff, stark, dead and 
rotten. 

Belief in a formal court above with a formal status causae 
et contraversiae, with trials, definings, defenses, arguments on 
all and every thing that the gorilla creature, even the most in- 
significant, has dimly conjectured, thought, felt, imagined, acted 
or not. All transacted naturally according to the degree of 
gorilla's culture, age, habits, customs, usages — agreeing with the 
saying, "many countries, many customs," valid even Above as 
statute and provincial right. 

Life below is only grief, is only to try gorilla. To be sure, 
gorilla-god knows every tiling before it is even conceived, yet 
he likes to try. Undoubtedly, has his reasons. And who would 
dare ask him: "What dost thou?" Earth is a vale of tears, 
miserable, only provisionary. Because gorilla is for eternity. 
And when sun and moon and stars, and mountain and valley, 
and sea and land decay, and time and space cease to be : the 
gorilla is destined for eternity. For eternity, even when unripe, 
unmoulded in the mother's womb, or when cast thence half- 



39 

finished. For eternity, even when a lisping babe, an irrational 
being. For eternity the dumb, deaf, blind, and crazy-born. 
For eternity the cretin. For eternity the gross, fat, buxom 
gorilla country-maid who has never done nor thought of any 
thing else but milking cows and cleaning stables. For eternity 
the gorilla bonze who, besides being occupied in cramming his 
paunch, is constantly bent on secretly increasing behind the 
sacred walls of his monastry the earthly kingdom of the gorilla- 
god. For eternity the life-long brooding and caring and troubl-. 
ing and plotting and scheming — merely for the purpose of- 
making money for homes and comfort, for fine dresses and 
trinkets, whereby to shine, to be marked, stared at, admired and 
envied at balls, theatres and watering-places. For eternity the 
gorilla officer and corporal who heretofore has always been in-, 
tent on humbly serving His Majesty and drilling gorilla clowns, 
but now graciously pensioned, he, as schoolmaster of His Ma- 
jesty, further serves by using the corporal-cane to whip the ca- 
techism into gorilla brats. For eternity the medical charlatan 
who has sat on an idea thirty years and hatched a plaster for 
corns, and now spends thirty years more to reap the profits, 
quackishly recommending his production in the style of good 
mountebank Bamboozle' s paper and almanac, which makes sixty 
years in all. For eternity the jurist who has spent a life-time 
in adapting the text of an antediluvian code to the exigencies of 
the modern condition of Kamtchatkian society. For eternity the 
red-skinned aboriginal skilled in the art of scalping ; the African 
gorilla who blackens his skin by indolently basking in the rays . 
of the sun all his life-time. For eternity the hangman, the exe-, 
cutioner, who has studied and practiced his profession all his life 
for the pleasure of the law. For eternity the fool, the idiot, the : 
hypocrite. 

"When the day of the Gilgul, the great rolling period — or, as 
some call it, resurrection — breaks forth, and at the end of the 
polar-years, the giants of former worlds will begin to stir and 
stretch and roll their huge limbs from under the icebergs, truly, 
I would like to see them in endless columns gravely stalking for- 
ward on their march to the heavenly kingdom. It will be o, 
sublime, an imposing procession, this journey onward! Who will 



40 

count the nations, call the names of all who will assemble in the 
house of the Father above, which, truly, must contain many 
chambers ! Indeed, indeed, would like also to see the gorilla 
rabble above, when they, intoxicated with victory, will hover 
about the saints in blissful beatitude, constantly flapping their 
wings. 

Verily, the gorilla religion has also a facetious, charming 
side ! Has, indeed, made many a one happy, gladdened many a 
gloomy hour, soothed many a sorrow, dried many a tear, and 
eased many a parting. For, between us be it said, beloved 
reader, the gorilla is loath to leave his comrades, his dear ones 
and this earth, be the bait held under the creature's nose, 
flavored as it may. It is thus constructed. It cannot and will 
not change. And besides, old habit, you know. And truth 
remains truth : parting is bitter, parting, yes, parting is pain. 
Do not blame it though, pray ! 

But, do not think gorilla so stupid as to believe that every 
insensible brat, every stammering black kinky-head, every 
stolid swine-herd, every crack-brained nun and monk of even 
the most harmonious couples, is fit for the great infinite prae 
caeteris animalibus. O, no ! gorilla is not so stupid. But he 
is convinced that his Lord God will make out of all half- 
formed, unfinished, crippled and defective souls entirely new 
ones, as well as out of all insensible castlings and monsters, 
perfect beings. Truly, it will be bad for recognition in the 
Hereafter. "When I maturely consider the thing, I think it would 
afford me but little fun, should I not meet the jolly features 
of my schoolmates, by which alone I could recognize them. 
When nose, mouth, eye, all is destroyed, there remains nothing 
at all for recognition — no body, no mind ; but there is a some- 
thing spick and span new. And that I must call a prolongation 
of life ? — But, as a belief — good enough, anyhow. 

In addition to this, dear reader, place clearly before your 
mind through what depthless nonsense the religious — or I 
might say, the untaught gorilla, the gorilla without intellect — 
has to wade before he reaches that degree of worthiness which 
entitles him to knock at the door of salvation. They attribute 
to their idol above gorilla affections, such as love, hate, joy, 



•11 

sorrow, and even sportfulness, at least on court-days "when 
the sons of God, and Satan among them, present themselves 
before the Lord." The gorilla fables that once the Lord God 
was so transported with fiery rage that, purely on account of his 
holiness and justice, lie would have felt obliged to annihilate all his 
creatures, "because tlieir sins deserved death, had not a timely sacri- 
fice 'propitiated him. Tlie sacrifice he found in his own son. Cer- 
tainly somewhat out of fashion since gorilla Abraham's days. 
The victim was to be without blemish, be it understood. A go- 
rilla sacrifice, of course ! The son, having been nailed to the 
cross as scape-goat for the execrable rabble, reconciled Father. 
Father then pardoned death-deserving, common pack ! — One 
for all ! — One good for so many bad ! — One faultless for so many 
faulty ! — One guiltless for so many guilty ! 

A nice bargain, indeed, for the gorilla! The only child 
accused, tortured, condemned, hanged — to amuse or convince 
Satan, just as before at the expense of poor Job, perhaps? — 
No, for infamous criminals! Glorious gorilla moral, sublime 
lesson of justice! Indeed, inscrutable, mysterious justice, in- 
imitable father-love, heroic self-conquest, cheerful forgiveness, 
sweet mildness, all-embracing love : all secundum codicem gorilla- 
rum seculi seculorum ! And, in fact, the gorillas rejoice that the 
Son was crucified, that he suffered and died for them, so that 
they may live eternally ! Oh ! how fervent their prayers, their 
thanks for his death, for his sufferings, for his agony ! Should 
not the deeply agitated gorilla heart, in its tender commiser- 
ation, call for revenge on the descendants, even to the tenth or 
hundredth generation, of those who were so vile as to allow them- 
selves to be selected by God the Father as tools for his revenge 
upon his people ? They should have said : Quod non, Lord God ! 
that will not answer; do it yourself ! — And how gloriously has 
the tender love, the compassionate lieart of gorilla cooled down, 
vented its spleen, and, with malicious satisfaction, carried on deeds 
of satanic vengencefor centuries, to punish the killing of him tvhose 
having been hilled entitles the avengers to eternal happiness! — 
There was no torture, transient or lasting, that was, not devised 
and inflicted upon man, woman and child, young and old, old 
and young; no corner of the world in which the old gorilla was 



t 



42 

not hunted down and slowly tortured to death ; compelled to 
drag out a life in comparison with which a quick death would 
have been a blessing. Ah ! how edifyingly the popes and their 
herds, with sanctimonious countenances, "the book of love,' as 
they call it, in hand, sing in the midst of throbs and groans and 
cries, because their Saviour, nearly two thousand years ago, was 
fiendishly sacrificed, which sacrifice is for their benefit! How 
sore do they feel ! But all the blood, all the agonies, all the 
sighs of the old gorillas do not equal their love, their com- 
passion for the crucified ! 

Dear reader ! would that I could understand the nonsense 
of which I here give you a brief sketch ! Must be, truly, super- 
natural ! My mind cannot grasp it. But the modern gorillas 
believe among other things in supernaturalism. I do not know 
the thing. I know only that it is taught in academies, and that 
those students who are candidates to preach the holy, true 
belief, are required to understand it from the root. But, on the 
whole, it rests on an inscrutable basis, the depths of which a 
mortal's feeble mind can not, shall not, will not, fathom. For, 
below there it is frightful, and gorilla must not try the gods and 
never dare behold what they conceal in darkness and night. 
Oh ! truly, I shudder ! 

" Watchman, what of the night ? 
Watchman, what of the night ?" 

I have often attentively looked at these gorilla beings, black, 
white, and red. Have seen them with broad, flat noses ap- 
parently smashed, which, being flanked by broad cheeks, gave 
to the face the appearance of a great, Sahara-like desert. Others 
with a highly vaulted chimney-piece, frequently adorned with a 
beautiful saddle-form under the low, suddenly retreating fore- 
head, vulture-like, highly aristocratic, the slender cheeks serving 
merely as props for the sides of the nose. Have seen gorillas of six, 
eight, ten years, huddled together in crowds of hundreds, twirl- 
ing and spooling, who, while breathing the factory's foul atmos- 
phere, neither seeing, hearing, nor thinking, only winding day 
by day, from morning until night, absorbed with every breath 
fatal disease — slowly withering. Have likewise paid some at- 



43 

tention to those living in convents, where they merely vegetate 
within their cloister-walls, and, superintended by old, scraggy, 
emaciated, world-renouncing nuns, drag out their existence for 
the sake of the cross, training gorilla young to prayers and 
hymns. I have also asked gorilla sages, what itrithih these 
gorilla brats is really worthy of eternal life. But could ob- 
tain no satisfaction from them. Had, consequently, to fall back 
upon my own resources. Pardon, therefore, dear reader, if my 
answer be but meager. The gorilla is, indeed, too exalted in 
pride to enlighten my ignorance. Then, I thought, could it 
chance to be the scrofulous cask, the dropsical paunch, the sup- 
purating, mephitic lungs, which will be beatified? No, surely 
not ! They rot already in the living flesh. Yet, they impress 
their stamp on the decaying machine and make the creature feel, 
think, brood and will, I might say, dropsically, purulently, me- 
phitically. Generally, the heigth and depth, length and breadth 
of the aspirations, actions and affections of the animal are de- 
pendent on disposition, habit, structure of the body, sensual 
organs, etc., just as the non-enjoyment of much of the outer 
world by the blind and deaf. What then, in all the world has 
really value enough to be possessed and prolonged millions of 
years and all eternity? Perhaps the maturing lady gorilla's 
intense, indomitable yearning for matrimony, dependent on 
and directed by her organs, accidentally female, without any 
possible self-responsibility ? Or is it the lack of brains in the 
brainless, or in the one short of brain, that is to be eternalized ? 
Or is it the tuberculous brain of gorilla Bamboozle, filled with 
fanaticism, Sunday excise laws, etc.? Truly, I find nothing 
worthy of being eternalized, whether among the Kalmucks, 
Tartars, Cosacks, Negroes, or the red or white gorillas ; or in 
the nomadizing, hunting, fishing, tilling, curing, judging, manu- 
facturing, merchandizing, dogmatizing, diplomatizing animal; 
or in the female, the oviparous animal. Let them simply die in 
peace, and moulder. Perhaps, innocent, sweet-scented roses 
and forget-me-nots will grow over them. But, after all, some- 
thing shall and must exist to satisfy the yearning after immor- 
tality. One must believe something ! — Well then, gorilla, puzzle 
your brain with different beliefs until it reels. Who cares? 



u 

Indeed, was it not your own affirmation that nature formed the 
transition to man through you ? Perhaps you are now in the 
stage of childhood, and have to ascend from believing to think- 
ing? 

So I thought for a while. Only do not believe in things so 
exceedingly silly as to make one doubt his eyes and ears. Did 
you not once begin to grow rational ? Was there too much 
reason at that period, was it too natural for you ? At least, so 
it appears. That is why you now act so childishly, preter- 
naturally, super-rationally, that is to say, unnaturally and un- 
reasonably. Therefore, the gorilla who blindly believes the most 
has the first place in eternity. You could break through a stone- 
wall with the head of so credulous a gorilla. Like a persistent 
ox that will keep butting his horns against a wall although it 
knows it cannot break it down, is the veritably believing gorilla. 
And such are the beloved of the Lord. The Lord has chosen 
them because they have chosen him. Mutual attraction, fasci- 
nation, flirtation. 

Henceforth they pray and beg energetically enough to make 
the very mountains quiver and the rivers stand still in their 
course. Every one prays and begs according to the guage of his 
nonsense and stupidity, and, finally, so begs the whole congrega- 
tion, the whole country. 

" Give me health !" prays the refined gorilla, and gulps, 
guzzles and gormandizes, of course never without the pope's 
benediction, until his stomach bursts. "Give me health and 
strength!" prays the prostitute after she has refused favors to 
not one gorilla in a whole regiment. " Make me healthy and 
powerful " — equivalent to : " allow me to remain inactive and 
to pass all of my days in slothfulness and riotous indul- 
gence!" — prays the bonze and disencumbers himself of his 
saintly duty by shaking each Sunday a thundering admonition 
out of his portfolio — for a trifle of two hundred or thereabouts. 
"Make me decent again, if it be only for a short time, and 
purify my foul, decomposed blood, strengthen my decrepid 
body !" prays the church-going, piously imbued gorilla matron, 
who has a dim recollection still of the days of virginity long 
gone. "Oh! restore my only child to health!" clamors the 



45 

feeble mother, who was all her life-time anxious to become a 
meekly suffering abode of syphilitic diseases, and to impregnate 
her young with the noxious blood. After destroying her or- 
gans by a dozen unnatural operations, she simply prays : " Make 
me sound!" in general. — Notwithstanding all this, you must 
acknowledge that the gorillas exercise shrewdness in prayer. 
They always deal with their idol in wholesale, never go in de- 
tails when they ask and beg. Like a shrewd lawyer, who never 
makes even the slightest allusion to what his adversary could 
seize and turn to his disadvantage, the gorilla never names the 
diseased organ which he wishes to have restored. By no 
means ! He is not so stupid as to pray like this for example : 
"Beloved virgin! I have shamelessly abused such and such 
organs by committing during consecutive years such and such 
misdeeds. They are now destroyed. The physician sees no 
help. Intercede thou, so that gorilla-god-father do it." Or: 
"Beloved mediatrix! I shall be lost, should society learn that I 
have anticipated the privilege of matrimony, without being 
entitled to it by paying the priest for his sanction. Thou canst 
judge, O blessed virgin ever fresh and blooming, from the days 
of thy own blissful overshadowing, of the emotions of such a 
creature, and knowest how prone the world is always to con- 
jecture wrong ! Avert the evil !" Or : " Beloved mediator ! I 
have abused my stomach by reveling and carousing for a longer 
period of time than any other gorilla could have done with 
like impunity. I lie ill with induration of the stomach ! Please, 
heal it!" Or: "Lo, I have contracted syphilitic disease. I 
suffer intensely; please, banish my pain." Gorilla does not like 
such detailed confessions for many reasons. Let this suffice, 
that gorilla is too decent, too modest, too delicate to mention 
such indelicate things, or to lay them in their nakedness be- 
fore the Supreme Being, who has so very much to do with 
keeping his many worlds in order. Besides, it causes disagree- 
able recollections. And what would be worse, it might call 
forth a flat refusal with the unwelcome reprimand : " Why are 
you such a brute as to use the noble gift, reason, to live like 
a beast !" That would, indeed, be provoking, offensive to the 
highly civilized, highly cultivated, christian gorilla of the nine- 



46 

teenth century.— Therefore, careful to give no offense, it always 
prays becomingly, cum grano sails, diplomatically. " Give me 
luck and success in my business !" (which is lying, cheating, de- 
ceiving from morning until night— so "do not allow others to 
discover my artifices, becloud their perception!") "Give rain! 
my corn which is my fortune, needs it !" " For heaven's sake, 
no rain," prays the neighbor, " my flax is in seed !" " Only sun- 
shine !" prays lady gorilla. She intends to visit her beau. She 
feels sure she will be attended to first. Her prayer is half 
command. She is an American lady. — 

Gorilla is so pious and god-fearing, that it calls in the me- 
diator even when it goes to battle, to mutilate, to crush con 
amore, by means of the most scientific of destructive weapons, 
its brother gorillas, parents and children ; when, through a sys- 
tem of tactics acquired only by the hard study of years — con- 
sequently, held in high esteem and renown — it practices re- 
fined depredation, murder, slaughter. Before it lets loose 
its fiendish wrath for the wholesale butchery of creatures 
which have never offended it, it invokes its idol's aid. The 
adversary does the same. You even see both parties piously 
and religiously fasting, mortifying the flesh and rushing in 
crowds to the prayer-houses, in order to be worked upon by the 
pope and tuned to the proper humor to call upon their God with 
all their might, while the Bamboozles, with a keen eye to their 
business, hasten to cry their papers for sale, printed expressly 
to incite the mass and keep up its rage. — Each party endeavors 
unceasingly to convince its Gods and all the saints that it is in 
the right; yea, each party assures them that they would act 
against law and eternal justice, should they not give the victory 
to the just cause, that is, to its party. Should the enemy be this 
time not trod under foot like the dust of the street, then eternal 
justice in future could not even be spoken of. Would, you could 
hear and see how the pope, standing before the crowd, disputes, 
discusses, gesticulates, moves fists and arms, and stamps with 
all his might, to — convince the All-just, the All-knowing, to put 
Him in the proper position whence rightly to view the matter. 
Think, they are in deep earnest ! They fast, or at least, they put 
themselves on allowance, that the enemy whom they embraced but 



47 

yesterday as brethren may be nicely paid off with butchery, 
hunger, thirst, drowning, roasting, maiming — be it understood, 
all in a humane, christian-like manner, according to rule and 
method. Ah, thought I, could I only assist the poor God, so 
beset ! How his knees are clasped from both sides ! How -they 
draw and pull, both right and left, to secure consummation of 
their wishes. Usually, however, but one party is victorious. 
How it thanks now, rejoices and frolics! But, it is conscious 
that its prayers were stronger, bataillons stronger, cannons 
stronger, and therefore — its right was the best right, the noble, 
truly christian right I No one with any sense of justice must 
feel pity for the sufferings and wants of the conquered who even 
deserve their bitter fate. God has so willed it. A true patriot, 
a loyal gorilla can have no compassion for the conquered foe. 
So teaches gorilla Bamboozle with his christianly conditioned 
amnesty-proclamation. O, Horace ! 

It is known in cultivated circles that lightning, though good 
for the atmosphere, ignites. But this does not prevent the 
pious gorilla from praying that Atta may destroy its character- 
istic when it passes over his flocks and house, unless these are 
insured. In case they are not, gorilla prays to guard his house 
and herds, and piously places the Bible and salt on the table as 
a reminder. He is right. For Atta is said to be omnipotent, 
and likes to listen to prayers. And, besides, has nothing else 
to do. For, since Newton, gravitation keeps in order the 
movement of the worlds with all the suns, moons, and so forth, 
so Atta can devote himself exclusively to gorilla and his needs 
and desires. — According to natural laws, all right. 

Every year the gorilla president invites the whole tribe to 
convene for the purpose of giving thanks to the great idol for 
the rich harvest. Gorilla obeys, and thousands from all quarters 
meet dutifully to thank beloved Atta for bestowing so richly, in 
such abundance, that they may continue their sojourn of 
sorrow, and be not compelled by starvation to journey to the 
Hereafter ; which accords not exactly with their willingness to 
die and their heavenly yearning for metamorphosis. But go- 
rilla devotedly acquiesces in the will of the Most High, particu- 
larly when bidden to rich feasts and quasi compelled to indulge. 



48 

Gorilla plainly sees the distributing hand of Atta, which be- 
stowed the rich harvest only for gorilla's joyful indulgence. 
For you must know that gorilla, in cases which appeal so 
strongly to the stomach, always clearly recognizes Atta's pur- 
pose, or at least divines it directly as well as indirectly, per 
exclusionem. My! for what else could the harvest be than for 
gorilla? — Ergo! Were you to hear them expressing their 
gratitude like human beings, hear the thanks-giving laudations, 
hallelujahs, glorifications, and adoration of, the heavenly Father, 
because of the fatherly care he takes for his children's pros- 
perity, feeding even the raven in its need, you would really 
think that all comes from the heart and not from the stomach. 
But I tell you, do not trust the hypocrites. All their amiableness, 
all their worshiping and their glorifying is hypocrisy. Heart has 
absolutely nothing to do with it. It is solely the stomach, the filled 
one, that thanks. Shall I prove it ? So be it ! The gorilla never 
thanks when crops entirely fail. Why not? Hm, for what should 
it be thankful? you ask; perhaps for the failure of crops, for 
the imminent starvation ? Certainly, that is for what it should 
render thanks. For the chastisement, for the punishment which 
the Father inflicts, because he loves his children. That is for 
what it has to be thankful. Because gorilla recognizes that 
want improves it, not abundance. Therefor it should render fer- 
vent thanks. — Sentimental palaver, you think. To be starved, to 
die of starvation — and render thanks for that ? ! Would that 
not be entirely against nature ? Would it not be dissimulation, 
hypocrisy? But, why did gorilla in the days of abundance 
expatiate so highly on its gratitude and resignation, saying, 
that, should the Father even punish it with hunger, misery and 
disease, it felt vividly that it would only be for its good, and 
it would in all humility give fervent thanks for the same. Ah ! 
why not now that the hour has finally come, practice what it 
preached ? How inconsistent the caricature is, how honorless, 
how characterless ! Now that the hour has come, if it had only 
a shade of a character, it ought to show that its palaver was 
more than idle talk. Behold, there it stands gaping, stunned, 
and takes it rather ill of you when you remind it of its former 
assurances of devotion. It thanks no longer, sings no halle- 



49 

lujalis, and, with drooping countenance, it grumbles. I, for my 
part, do not blame it. Surely, it was touched a little too close. 
To die of an empty stomach, and moulder, and not a hope any- 
where to escape the calamity — and to sing halleluja"hs for all 
that ? No ! Let the bonze do that if he can — but gorilla's 
voice dies in the throat. I tell you, there is but one logic for 
it. It would devour its own offspring, eat one another, should 
hunger overwhelm it. It recognizes neither God nor his com- 
mandments, neither law nor justice. It neither sees nor listens 
to argument or reason. Stomach rules, stomach directs its feel- 
ings, and its reason too. The creature will pray finally. But 
when ? When it no longer finds any thing to slaughter, then it 
will pray. But it then prays at least according to common 
sense, not preter-naturally : " Idol, give me some thing to eat ! 
Bless the second crop ! Punish me rather in other things, if 
thou wilt. Chastise me with sickness" (entertaining the mental 
reservation : "With time comes counsel, then I shall pray other- 
wise.") Or, again: "Take me unto thee in heaven that I may 
be beyond all these tribulations. Do it, but — though — not 
quite yet — am not yet prepared, must repent, have helpless 
babes which I wish to bring up in thy ways. (It has got on the 
right track now.) And if thou wilt not commiserate me for my 
sake, do it for the sake of those poor, innocent children who 
have never sinned." Behold, thus prays the gorilla then. Ah! 
the gorilla is sly, understands its God fully, knows how to 
manage him. Were you to judge the gorilla entirely by its- 
prayers, you would, at times, think that it acts just like mam 
It understands so well how to dissimulate and to put on an 
honest countenance before its Lord. Whenever it appears to 
the creature as if its life were threatened, it always finds, on 
cool and quiet deliberation, so many reasons to lay before its 
Lord that it feels sure of being heard. This abode of sorrow 
lies too close to its heart. Moreover, it has grounds to fear that, 
although its days were numbered even before its birth, they 
might not yet be quite full, and Lord God, the omniscient, might 
forget it. At least, gorilla thinks it wise to remind him of it. 

Then, it has timely taken care, in a genial way, for as- 
sistance. First, the holy mother of God, having been herself a* 



50 

mother of several children, virgin ever fresh. — She surely knows 
how sorrowful is the one who came to fall. Gorilla applies to her 
in crowds, wears her image around the neck, on the bosom, presses 
and kisses it, drags around a string of beads, and prays counting 
so many little ones, then a big one — but , certainly never commit- 
ting idolatry — up and down the string, so earnestly that the 
ground quivers. For, gorilla is sure that the virgin will help 
whenever she can, if it only fervently call upon her immaculate- 
ness. And she can always, because she has great power. I tell 
you, there scarcely exists another religion in the whole world 
which offers in all Christianity such ways and means. That of 
the Turkish gorilla certainly not. They have no rosary, not 
such a virgin, and can not appeal to immaculateness. There- 
fore, gorilla Bamboozle, in his paper, simply calls its founder a 
^swindler, an imposter. Surely, he knows something about it; 
(Otherwise, he tvould not so shamelessly slander. Perhaps he 
thinks, the Turkish religion is not so rational as his. lie loves 
rational religions, the canonical part of which requires only to be 
believed, and the philosophical not to be examined! — 

Then, the gorilla has another mighty patron — gorilla-god- 
son. Having suffered for the crimes of others to propitiate 
the anger of the father ; having been nailed to the cross for 
those miserable animals ; having been found guilty and t con- 
demned by the father; but now, sitting on the right of the 
Father, who is conciliated generally, he has reserved an un- 
changeable kindliness for such trash. Whatever evil gorilla 
may do — lying, deceiving, perjuring, murdering, pillaging, burn- 
ing — it seizes, at the critical moment, his image made of brass, 
wood, glass, ivory, marble, porcelain — pictured exactly as he 
hung on the cross, be it understood, with the cross itself — kisses 
it, begs forgiveness and intercession, and, led by the priest, goes 
to the gallows secure of a happy immortality. Gorilla thinks 
there is counsel for every thing, not in medicine, but in religion 
when this is founded on reason and is without idols, or idolaters, or 
idolatry, which was all in vogue in former centuries only among 
the uncultivated heathens, it is true. — But then such means 
were necessary to keep those animals in order and good dis- 
cipline. Mow all are more civilized, cultivated, christianized 1 — 



51 

« 

The first lineage of holy patronage seems to have died out 
with gorilla-god-son. At least, I do not find in the chronicles 
that he, like his father, knew a woman and overshadowed her. 
On the contrary, they say, as a general rule he deemed it best 
not to marry at all. Truly, I can scarcely understand, at least, 
I cannot explain in a very delicate manner, what his ideas were 
about the ways and means of increasing the population of God's 
kingdom. Have applied for information to the nuns and monks 
who, being unmarried, must certainly be authorities on this 
point. But have not been enlightened. They say every body 
can interpret that as he likes. As if there were any thing for 
explanation where the word is so precise and clear I The best 
is, to act according to father Luther's motto : " The word, let it 
stand!" And so he taught and acted. "To marry is good," 
behold ! he married, having lived and acted long enough ac- 
cording to the other motto : " Not to marry is better." So he 
did the better thing first, and the simply good last. Insignificant 
chronological error ! Occurs now and then with gorillas. Even 
so with men. But with them it is justifiable ; because they al- 
ways act according to an ingenious, ethical, moral rule which 
in this case reads scientifically : errare humanum. — You meet, 
now and then, with a similar chronological error among the go- 
rillas, when an adherent of the old Teaching backslides from the 
established doctrine of reason and professes the new creed. 
Then gorilla deems itself converted. Glories in it. Shows mod- 
esty and publishes that a new light has broken in upon it. Calls 
that conversion. It is, in reality, but a chronological and etymo- 
logical error, and ought to read : perversion. Gorilla publicly con- 
fesses that it has retrogaded from the characteristic of maturity, 
inquiey and knowledge, to thai of childhood, belief. However, it 
finds itself politically benefited according to the maxim : " When 
you are with wolves, you must howl !" Or, according to this : 
Where fools rule, intellect goes begging. Henceforth, this sort of 
perverted creature excels all others in hypocrisy, dissimulation 
and impudent ostentation. Has, really, studied the crowd long 
enough to despise it. Before, it carried on its machinations at 
a distance somewhat removed, on the outskirts of society, with 
the portals barred. Now, with this one hypocrisy, it has placed 



52 

itself per saltum mortale in the midst of society, and intrigues 
more easily, more powerfully and unobserved, under the aegis 
of its sanctity. The world wants to be deceived, therefore — let 
it be deceived ! 

There originates from gorilla Luther a schism in the new 
creed. The divine doctors could not agree, and the head- 
gorillas, in order to call forth the true light and fire, began 
boxing one another's ears. On the whole, canon remained 
canon, intolerance remained intolerance, belief remained belief. 
But progress was made unconsciously. Luther claimed for him- 
self especially the right of limited thinking, and declared every 
one of his colleagues an independent baba instead of the single 
baba in Rome — all babas as so many independent popes ! The 
thing pleased, looked like freedom. Moreover, to be permitted 
to marry ! think ! — True, in thinking and inquiring they should 
not overtop him. But when the independent babas found out 
his weak point, that he, as a juggler and teacher of preternatural 
things, did not equal the great original even in taming the devil 
whom he only dared attack with an inkstand, in order to keep 
him off his neck, then their respect decreased, and every one 
thought himself more or less a sovereign baba. Therefore, 
from that time persecution increased, belief decreased ; for, the 
more heads, the more nonsense ! And now every sect, great 
or small, drives along like a ship without rudder on the stormy 
waves. Each would like to break the other's neck, if the civil 
arm did not keep them asunder for a while. For a while ! But, 
to the strong in belief this while periodically appears too long 
a while, and then begins the slaughtering. There was a time 
when a general butchery lasted thirty years. Gorilla luxuriates 
on such occasions not only in the blood of the old gorillas, but 
in that of the innocent gorilla young also, even rips, at times 
the young from the mother- womb. All, of course, with hymns 
and praises, all to the glory of God on high; all under the 
leadership, benediction and consecration of the holy gorilla- 
divine ; aU for the one, true and best of all religions, the religion 
of love ; all out of pure Christianity ! — 

Gorilla likes to give a certain finish to every thing which he 
apes. The truly faithful gorilla, whose creed is that of the 



53 

only saving church, has, therefore, in addition to the above 
mentioned mediators, at least one saint for every day in the 
year. Therefore, not a day, not an hour passes without the go- 
rilla and his affairs being under the special protection of a 
patron — dii majorum et minorum gentium. But, the latter signi- 
fication does not perfectly agree, as it is taken from paganism. 
The same is known as being idolatrous, devoted to the worship 
of idols. The gorilla of to-day, however, gigantically 'progressing 
in culture, civilization and Christianity, despises idolatry, image- 
worship, as being below its dignity, and looks down tvith disdain 
upon those dark times in ivhich rational beings had sunk so loiu as 
to be inflamed by painted carvings and chisel-work, like Jacob's 
lambs of old over the striped rods in the trough. In the 
original language, the word Jacobi means, as you know, de- 
ceiver. To be sure, the paid lackey of to-day looks upon 
the gorilla as the rogue Jacobi did upon his flock, as sheep 
and lambs, and even addresses them as his herd. But not- 
withstanding, gorilla knows that the Jacobite merely strokes, 
flatters and fawns. 

Although the divines disagree whether the wafer and the 
wine which they administer periodically, is to be swallowed 
and assimilated as the true flesh and blood of the supernaturally 
naturally begotten One, or is to be taken only in memory of 
him ; as far as the practical benefit of his mediatorial services 
and those of all the saints is concerned, there can be as little 
doubt as about the overwhelming influence of cousinship 
generally. Therefore, you now find in the private apartments of 
the true believers, in the sanctum sanctorum, images of saints in 
various positions and costumes. Prominent is the virgin, the 
simple, modest, mild, youthful, beautiful, amiable, compassionate 
mother of God. In one of the pictures, she appears with the 
hands stretched forth to gorilla creatures in purgatory, who, 
with features distorted by anguish, call pitifully upon her. Do 
not laugh at it, nor ridicule it. It certainly has a serious side. 
It would very little please even men of education, I mean to say, 
to be broiled, roasted, carbonized. It is easy to enjoin in the 
ten commandments : " Thou shalt make to thyself no graven 
image, neither of that which is in heaven, above, nor in the 



54 

earth beneath." That is all very easy to say as long as a 
creature is not in need. I, at least, openly acknowledge that 
if I were exposed to so hellish a glare, I would grasp even at a 
straw, and much more eagerly at the hand of an amiable, spot- 
less virgin. I should surely soon get the reputation of a fool, 
or a hard-hearted eccentric, would I not hasten to meet the lady 
half-way, or were I snappishly to return love with indifference. 
Courtesy alone would guide me aright. And couetesy, you 
know, means Christianity! — 

Another picture in the chamber of the gorilla of steadfast 
faith attracts your attention. It represents gorilla-god-son as he 
was nailed to the cross, showing even the nails driven through 
the flesh, and the oozing blood. Frightful ! Makes my flesh 
creep. Look at the head, dangling, drooping on one side, the 
agonized, aid-imploring countenance ! The view overwhelms 
the senses, disturbes equanimity. No, it can not be endured ! 
One would like to extirpate, root and branch, the whole pack, 
the whole tribe of those who nailed him to the cross. "What 
judge would not acquit the gorilla who, acting on the first ex- 
citement of the moment, should extinguish the life of one of 
their descendants? And excitement? How can he avoid it 
when looking at the picture on retiring and rising ? Truly, he 
is no idolater, practices no image-worship! — For he does not 
worship the picture — only what it represents, only the situation 
which it puts before his mind! — Think, the Saviour of the tvorld, 
in agony, bleeding, groaning, moaning, gasping, with upturned, 
expectant looks, dead, arising, ascending to heaven /—Acknowledge, 
even were you to class gorilla among the thickest-skinned 
pachydermata — and really, you do consider the goriUa an extra- 
ordinarily thick-skinned animal in deeming such pictures necessary 
to move it — the pictures are enough to revolt their very souls, 
fill them with horror and amazement, phantasies, emotion, sen- 
timents, compassion, pity, sympathy, love, hate, disdain, with 
longings to persecute and annihilate! — A vast field, indeed, on 
which the paid laclcey can plough, till, sow, and from which he reaps 
accordingly whatever pleases him ! — 

You will find then with the gorilla the quintessence of all 
that faith, religion, piety and love contain, is embraced in the 



55 

word cross, and typified in the figure of a cross. — They 
speak of the cross and mean each and everything : need, grief, 
misery and destruction ; they mean soul and bliss ; mean faith 
and trust ; mean truth and justice. To be sure, as is shown, all 
according to their conception. They wear the cross on the body 
as a symbol or amulet, and worship it as holy, and pray on it. — 
The lady gorillas wear diminutive crosses in the ears, around 
the neck, upon the bosom. Yes, they put them as adornments 
on corpses, when pompously laid out in state before they begin 
to stink. — I know, reader, that this expression revolts your 
olfactory nerves. You are so delicate, you like cleanliness and 
harmony. Ah, yes, for the nose! "What a repugnant word! 
Do you know, I often think, that it is chiefly the quality 
expressed by that bad word, and the nose through which it is 
perceived which are, among other things, the greatest insti- 
gators and dictators of your feelings, of your sense of decorum, 
of your decency, of your cleanliness ? Now go and philosophize 
in order to harmonize instinct and your fondness for haut-gout 
and cheese. — What mysterious influence the cross may exercise 
upon the corpse, I do not know. Perhaps it wards off bad 
spirits — certainly not bad odors. The gorilla likes above all 
things to treat the corpses respectfully and fondly. "De mortuis 
nil nisi bene " and "Mortui non mordent " are sacred axioms. As 
soon as gorilla knows a fellow-gorilla is dead, it no longer wishes 
to slander or to maltreat it, however remorselessly it may have 
persecuted or, at least, misjudged it in life. It knows the dead 
bite no longer, therefore it bites the dead no longer, for — it Is a 
magnanimous, chivalrous, genial, truly christian gorilla! — So 
tender-hearted and pitiful toward its deceased brother ! If you 
were only somewhat more stupid, you might be touched and 
learn Christianity even from a dead gorilla ! — 



The old gorillas, since their departure from Asia, have al- 
ways been migratory. They are, as you find them to-day, in a 
state of transition. On the whole, they do not know how they 
stand with Atta. It is an open question, whether to break with 
hi™ or not. They think that there is a great deal in the Teach- 



56 

ing not accordant with culture, civilization, the spirit of the age ; 
for instance, the Most Sacred' s oft recurring threat of revenge, 
the cruel punishment by death. They think, a good deal is 
offensive, even repulsive to the feelings, as the outrage com- 
mitted on "damsel Dinah," "which thing ought not to be 
done," and, indeed, it ought not to have been done ! — Or the 
entire thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis which is so exceedingly 
shameless, dirty and vile, that no orthodox believer, heretic, 
infidel, nor reformer would permit the chaste damsel of his 
household to read it, even were you to offer him the treasures 
of Ophir ! Her innocence would be jeopardized immediately, 
decency, good habits, all, all ! — And yet, fathers are required to 
esteem such things holy, and from time to time to embrace the 
Scripture as the best thing on earth, to press it to the heart and 
to carry it in devotional procession through the temples! — 
Think! They blush with shame while reading it in private! 

Or even the juggleries and impostures, and the ways and 
means of arraigning Atta himself and treating him like a stupid 
boy, in order to bring him to terms and to grief. — Or, finally, 
the many contradictions to truths established on natural laws. — 
Truly, as things are now, the old gorilla pays the divine to har- 
monize, as far as possible, the ancient and the modern. And 
he does it bravely, indeed, by means of broader, deeper scholar- 
ship and sanctity! — Justifies one thing by saying that the 
Teaching, in its eternal truth, exposes the heroes' weak sides 
just as any good historical work would do. Nevertheless, it is no 
historical book, but a holy one ! Therefore, with the sacredness 
of the whole" always in view, you ought not, when speaking of 
individuals, to use such words as filth, obscenity, baseness. — 
He expounds the other on the supposition that Atta dealt 
with the gorillas of old as with innocent, untrained babes, and 
permitted them also to converse thus with him. Notwith- 
standing, the book is not a book for infants, not an A-B-C book. 
Having the holiness of the whole book in mind, it would ill 
become you to call the intrigues, tricks, juggleries by these 
profane words. — He explains contradictions to the laws of 
true science thus, that Atta condescended to deal with the go- 



57 

rilla on its own level, not from his standpoint. — But with the 
sanctity of the whole, and the sum total of its good before your 
eyes, you should not be offended with the lack of science, the 
nonsense, or even find fault with the paid lackey's explanation; 
nor should you notice such contradictions as this, that Atta 
frequently dealt with the gorillas as crafty, cunning villains 
who did not much resemble innocent children ! — He attributes 
a great deal to faults in the translation. So the modern, fashion- 
able paid church-lackey interprets the custom of keeping milk 
food and animal food separate, by saying that it is merely an 
erroneous translation ; likewise, the custom of not touching fire 
on Sabbath. It requires therefore a very deep philological 
knowledge, if you wish to live piously as a modern gorilla- 
man would say, if you wish to live humanly, the narrow- 
minded christian would say christianly. — You must necessarily 
understand Chaldaic, Arabic, Syriac, Hebrew, and if you be an 
adherent of the new creed, old Greek too, also something about 
the usages and perversities of those times ! — All this, your richly 
salaried lackey tells you. At the same time, he always takes 
care to preserve the whole intact, not perhaps as a mixtum com- 
position, but as a sacred revelation, while he seemingly accounts 
for the spirit of the times, seemingly for the progress of science, 
even teaching immortality, which seems to have been acciden- 
tally forgotten in the Teaching. He appears to know his con- 
gregation, and, like a good business-man, works unremittingly 
for the one idea that fills his heart, which is, to bring about a 
bargain, a kind of exchange with the great crowd of the gorillas 
of the new contract. He offers to change his Sabbath to theirs, 
and td*accept the immortality-swindle ; because, acting from his 
and his flock's point of view, so very much can be effected by it 
without the trouble of searching, studying, knowing, and without 
allowing the ghostly, loathsome spectre, Doubt, to arise. — But 
they shall sacrifice Trinity, because that device has, in these 
times, become too apparent, or, at least, does not succeed any 
longer among the cultivated gorillas. Moreover, as the common 
class, more or less have learned to read, and as they live in a 
republic where every one can even proffer an opinion, there is 
imminent danger of sacrificing the wheat with the chaff. His 



58 

congregation would like the aforesaid bargain. It yearns for 
the consideration and respect of those who hold the reins. 
Haying made money, they already display, especially in New- 
York, their worthiness and cultivation in — newly built school- 
houses ? universities ? 0, no ! no ! no ! — in temples, from the pews 
of which the poor, the beggar, every one who does not possess 
thousands of dollars to pay for them, is strictly excluded. They 
already sit in the temple with uncovered heads, evincing by 
removing the hat that they pay homage to the prevailing custom 
of the times. But the lady gorilla spreads out all her riches — 
displays her education — as at balls, soirees, theatres, proving 
irrefutably that she well understands the holy obligation im- 
posed upon her by the accumulated possessions of her husband, 
namely, usefully to employ the days of the week in studying 
toilet, and thus artfully to creep into the reputation of having 
a refined education. They have ominously named their temple 
in New- York " Emanuel," and a paid lackey proved in one 
of the dedication-sermons that the name "Emanuel" has re- 
ference only to the herd, therefore, that the true meaning can 
not be " God is with us," but more appropriately " God he with 
us," (cry for help against the evil one.) That you may not 
think, the writer of these pages has unreluctantly allowed his 
name to be thus bungled in the translation, he here protests 
against it with all due ceremony. 

The herd of this God-be-with-us temple in New- York re- 
presents the reformers, that is, members who allow themselves 
to be incessantly reformed by the paid lackey. To what ? is 
not stated ; they themselves know not, neither does the shep- 
herd. To the spirit of the present age, say the gorilla ftiales ; 
to modern fashion, say the females. But to what not, that they 
do know. Not to truth, not to enlightenment, not to in- 
struction, not to knowledge ! By no means ! 

In opposition to these are the unmanageable, immutable old 
gorillas. They do not want to hear any thing about the spirit of 
the age, or of fashion. They have only exchanged the word Teach- 
ing for Religion, because they do not like to enlighten. What 
they call teaching is merely interpreting old words, phrases, 
allegories, parables. They hate teaching, which they call in- 



59 

novating, first, because no end can be seen of teaching and 
searching ; secondly, because scrutiny gives no firm hold to which 
old and young, stupid and wise, can cling in the present and 
future. They will not even hear any thing about errors in the 
translation. As every thing was explained long ago, and as 
etymological and scientific corrections concern only professional 
scholars, they look upon all that as puerile. They have only 
adopted the theory, or, better, the swindle of immortality, be- 
cause they do not like to remain in ashes when the trumpet 
sounds for the Gilgul. For, you must know that the old gorilla 
is full of covetousness in spite of the decalogue. Therefore, 
they have 'ferreted out of the Teaching some allusions to a 
Hereafter. 

On the whole, both parties pray like the gorillas of the 
amended contract. Only, the old gorilla mostly prays to its 
God in the original, dead language, which is so stone-dead, 
rotten and forgotten, that even the most learned of the 
learned do not speak it. The gorillas themselves, male and 
female, do not understand the language at all, do not even 
read it accurately, neither do they wish to learn it, convinced 
that it has value only for professional learning. However^ 
for the purpose of dealing devotedly with Atta, it is the best. 
There are many reasons. First, it is and remains the holy lan- 
guage, the god-chosen, the beloved ; the language in which God 
himself has spoken. Second, a sacred language, because the 
book of all books, the book of the Teaching is written in it. 
Third, because the forefathers used to converse with Atta in 
that language and were listened to. Now, a few other reasons 
besides. As Atta loves the language so much, gorilla willingly 
makes the sacrifice of conversing with him in it, although it does 
not understand what it says, prays and begs ; consequently, it 
might easily be cheated. But it blindly trusts its Atta, and 
more than that, it feels that Atta will put in order for himself 
all the confused mass brought before him. Gorilla might be 
sadly disappointed, if, on the contrary, the One above were 
to accept and understand all that the blockheads say. I have 
often heard the gorilla distorting the pronunciation of certain 
words in the old language so that they were made to signify the 



60 

commonest and most indelicate things. However, gorilla trusts 
and is generally strong in trust — as long as the pocket is not 
touched. It likewise generally appears before Atta with empty 
pockets. But, the old gorilla prays and sings, especially in the 
God-be-with-us temple, in the native language of the country 
in which they have made a temporary halt on their journey to 
Jerusalem. Ah, believe it, that is a most savory hotch-potch — 
the new language compounded and spiced with the old ! No 
nectar, no ambrosia could exhale so delicious a fragrance on 
high. Gorilla is right. If the main purpose of all praying and 
begging is after all only for gain, say for a little slice of great 
salvation and eternity, or for goods and chattels, or strength 
and power, why not beset Atta on all sides, clasp his knees and 
summon up and exercise all the means which lie within the 
bounds of possibility, so that he cannot escape them? As 
gorilla formerly paid court to Atta's olfactories with oxen, sheep, 
lambs, pigeons, and occasionally with living gorillas, so they 
pay him court to-day with song and clang and every possible 
tune which, powerful to awaken memories, may strike agree- 
ably on Atta's tympanum. 



And now I was driven into the interior of the churches, 
synagogues, mosques of the gorillas, to become enabled fully to 
admire the public worship in all its glory, There, O man! 
reveals itself an entirely different kingdom. The kingdom of 
infiniteness in finiteness ; the kingdom of invisibleness in visible 
perspicuity; the kingdom of eternal truth and justice with 
public confessions of baseness and villainy in conduct, action 
and daily pursuits, yea, in thinking and planning ; the kingdom 
of eternal wisdom and clearness in oracular phrases, obscure 
sayings and myths ;, the kingdom of freedom and frankness in 
exclusive, canonized customs; the kingdom of an infinitely 
luminous light in lurid shadows and clouds. All and every 
thing bids you dismiss from your mind the usual thoughts 
and ideas, and leave them outside with all your cheerfulness 



61 

and desires. All, all invites you to a pilgrimage to the super- 
natural infinite, to something — I do not know what. If the 
gorilla caricature were only otherwise, if only the hollowness 
did not grin out of every haunt, I would willingly bring a sacri- 
fice, would willingly mingle for a moment with the crowd. 
Would even reconcile myself to the sparingly admitted light, 
would even struggle hard against a comparison which forces 
itself upon me : the temple's obscurity with the darkness of the 
dimly lighted counters of a merchant whose interest justly 
demands that light be excluded from his goods — that so very 
often injurious light. Has not shade also its virtues ? Covers 
faults for the merchant, and also for the church-hireling when 
he takes you by the hand and leads you to the Hereafter, the 
infinite kingdom of the shades of the departed, which so 
tenderly, so blissfully reminds of the overshadowing of the holy, 
spotless virgin, Mrs. Maria Joseph ! If the gorillas would only 
not howl so furiously, not open their mouths so wide, not 
glance so devotedly through half-closed eye-lids when offering 
to Atta from their books sad, monotonous tunes, I would readily 
forget all their daily machinations only too well known, and not 
remember all those whom they daily butcher and slaughter. And 
were it not for the monotonous song and the clang of the organ, 
which last so long, not easy would be the discovery of the wise 
intention and prudent purpose of the shepherd, thus to deaden 
the thinking faculties or lay them asleep before he enters to 
address the flock. Then, when like a deus ex machina he sud- 
denly emerges from the wall and, finally, stands all complete in 
the sentry-box, he resembles more a buffoon than a gorilla- 
creature : clad in a high turban and an innocent bib, as an 
emblem of purity and guilelessness, or in a dark shirt of the 

d 's color; now resting motionless like a column, with his 

arms hanging, or hands devoutly folded across the pit of the 
stomach, like the lady-gorilla with her carelessly undulating, 
much concealing handkerchief and prayer-book hiding a 
rampant waist ; or now sunk in holy contemplation, dropping 
his looks ; and suddenly, as if called from above, throwing them 
to the dome's arch, hysterically staring! I would even for- 
give all that, would think let him perform his tricks, let him 



62 

play the buffoon. He only designs to do something for his 
Sunday's pay, at least, to show that he exerts himself to the 
best of his ability in this performance to earn his Sunday's 
wages of from fifty to three hundred dollars. — But when the 
creature, perceiving the general lassitude, which it quickly inter- 
prets as weakness, shakes its mane and stirs; and when the 
flock below, through the lulling, monotonous sing-song, have 
become fit for the purpose, that is, incapable of reflection, 
which their half-closed eyes, drooping mouths, staring looks 
denote ; and when he begins to talk : then, I tell you, the 
joke is truly at an end. He speaks. Yes, yes, he speaks ! But 
what kind of a tone is that ? Bah ! He does not speak in the 
tone of other creatures. No, not at all ! Nor in a style resem- 
bling theirs. Neither in an historical, nor descriptive, nor didac- 
tic style, nor in that of explanation, argumentation, deduction. 
No ! no ! His tone is entirely different, his manner especially 
peculiar — invented only for the purpose. He speaks in a high 
tone, elevated above all, stretched, drawled, unctious, majestic super- 
natural as it were; one, proving inspiration, expelling doubt, not 
admitting contradiction, not even hesitation; often soft, mild, lull- 
ing ; often thundering, annihilating. You would liken it to that 
mild voice used by the Father in order not to terrify, when he, 
Omniscient, asked Adam : " "Where art thou ?" Or to that 
thundering, majestic voice on the top of Mount Horeb which 
awed the gorillas into maintaining a devout, subservient distance. 
Or to the wrathful tone in which he commanded the leader of 
the gorillas : " Go, get thee down, for thy people which thou 
broughtest out of the land of Egypt (like a dativus commodi!) . 
have corrupted themselves!" — had you only been present on 
those occasions. Or to the flute of the shepherd, when he 
saunters behind his lambs. So much, however, is certain, that 
the lackey has good grounds for his tone. He studied it for 
years, when he was a jolly fellow at the university, or later, 
when a candidate for high office. Has studied to appear inno- 
cent and holy, has studied piety! — Proof for whatever he says 
is unnecessary. The content itself is sufficient proof, besides 
the recognition of it by the government as being indisputable, 
therefore, civilly and legally incontrovertible. The tone proves 



63 

and convinces, the tone attracts, elevates, inspires, transports — 
with emotion the entire great flock. Therefore, stop your ears 
for a while, as it can be of no importance to you whatever the 
lackey in the mosque, synagogue or church says, as it is every- 
where and always right, and even always right in advance; 
for, the governments as well as the lambs of the flock have 
approved it beforehand. Now, as your purpose is only to 
study the gorilla's habits and customs, direct your looks to the 
hero's movements and actions in the sentry-box. How very 
serious the countenance of the comedian ! Which do you sup- 
pose is the deepest,, bis seriousness or the pockets he is so 
anxious to lard even on this day, Sunday, the holy Sabbath of 
the Lord ? ! And you call that labor ? — A very severe, sweat- 
provoking labor it is, indeed.- Is really sweetly paid, too. — A 
dollar a phrase, or even five a sentence ! — All is done, under- 
stand well, solely for the glory of the Lord, all is only holy 
work ; nothing is done for the sake of money, not at all ! — Only 
the money is not rejected, because the shepherd too must live. 
But every laborer is worth his . hire, and the work can not be 
done at another time so well as on Sunday, when every one has 
the best time and is free from labor ; because nobody else will 
work on the blessed Sunday when the holy pope alone keeps 
open his workshop. "What a mass of good reasons in a bad 
paragraph ! Behold, how he works on Sunday ! He labors 
not only with his tongue, but works likewise with hands and 
feet. True, he does not grind the organ and beat the drum. 
That part he leaves to his assistant up in the choir opposite or 
back of him. But, rely on it, nothing of whatever can be 
effected with his arms and hands, legs and feet, eyes, airs, 
grimaces, with gesticulations and jerkings of the body, will 
remain untried. He will fully and honestly earn his money, tJie 
Sabbath-breaker. For, on this day, the holy Sunday, the com- 
mandment, that in the sweat of the face he shall eat bread, lies 
above every thing else nearest to his heart, to his stomach. 
Do not let the thought steal upon you that it is all over with 
his dignity. He never is, nor can be without that, When he 
stands still in the sentry-box, he stands with dignity ; when he 
mo\es, he does it with dignity; in rest and in motion, he 



64 

always emulates his great archetype. When his voice is sweet, 
his countenance smiling and his appearance mild, it is the sweet 
meekness of him whose shoe's latchet he deems himself not 
worthy to unloose. When his voice thunders, when the gorilla- 
creature cries and roars, it is with holy zeal for the salvation of 
his herd. When he stamps, when he rushes as if possessed, 
from one side of the sentry-box to the other, and pounds the holy 
book, filled with anger, burning with rage and wild with fury, it 
is from overwhelming anxiety, not for his Sunday's pay which 
as a bargain is secure, no ! but for the present and eternal weal 
of the entrusted lambs. What a glorious leading buck of the 
herd you are, thought I. Oh ! how good that the walls of the 
sentry-box are the limits of your rage! — But I was entirely 
mistaken. Of the lambs below, none feared the impetuosity of 
the mighty thunderer. When they withdrew highly edified, 
that is, delighted, all said : " That was well done, well cried, 
well roared, well raged ; he must have an extra hundred for the 
exertion ! How he whimpered and whined, how distressed he 
was ! How the sweat rolled from his brow !" Divine bell- 
wether ! 

Then the thought came to me, the gorilla must, nevertheless, 
have been amused by some thing else than the mere buffoonery 
of the clown in the sentry-box. I thought, since he has them 
only once a week under his hands, and being entirely alone with 
them, no one daring to interfere, his sole aim is to take them by 
storm. He thinks, perhaps, that to-day he shall and will van- 
quish them, and therefore he attacks them neck and heels, side- 
ways, forwards and backwards, with gentleness and love, by 
stroking and petting, by threats and promises, through joy 
and grief, whining, groaning, weeping, lamenting, crying, howl- 
ing, storming and thundering — the stony-hearted, thick-skinned 
creatures ! 

I resolved to go once more, and, that I might do him perfect 
justice, I determined not to look at him, but to wear blue spec- 
tacles, and not close my ears, but only listen. Perhaps it 
is the sense of his words that amused the animals. Viva vox 
docet ! So I sat down and listened. Leaving aside the stage- 
tricks, which the gorilla bell-wether clownishiy copied from the 



65 

performers in the theatres of men, I shall give the substance 
of what I gathered from the discourse. 

"All I say unto you, is holy. Abababa himself has said it. 
(So the pope, in apparently infantile, playful innocence and 
holy simplicity, names the Supreme Being — though playful- 
ness, juvenility and innocence immediately disappear when his 
pockets are touched even ever so lightly.) All that Abababa has 
said is contained in the book of books, the holy book. What 
the holy book contains, is studied by me, the servant of Aba- 
baba, as I have consecrated my life to the holy service. There- 
fore, whatever is spoken and done by me, the servant of Aba- 
baba, is done in holy zeal for the Lord. In honoring me, you 
honor the Lord. But should my deeds be culpably weak, then 
the word ' The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, ; is appli- 
cable. Listen to my words and view not my deeds. 'Judge 
not, lest ye be judged.' But do not allow yourselves to be mis- 
led by the saying, 'A tree is known by its fruit.' That is not 
applicable. For the common, uncultivated gorillas, it is there- 
fore better always to ask the Yice- Abababa, whether and where 
a proverb is applicable, that, for the welfare of their souls, they 
may remain in the path of holy simplicity." 

To be sure, the gorilla in Asia has holy books too, which a 
son of their Abababa is said to have produced many hundred 
years before Mrs. Maria Joseph's son. But that Abababa is 
not the genuine Abababa, says gorilla Bamboozle. Your reason, 
noble gorilla, tells you that he cannot be the right one. For, in 
the first place, he is said to have descended as a Holy Ghost, 
in the form of a dove, on the mother of Zoroaster. Bidiculous ! 
Then she is said to have conceived of him, and the child with- 
out father is said to be the son of the Holy Ghost. Nonsense ! 
Then, the many absurdities which are related as wonders, but 
which are in contradiction to common sense. — So also the 
wonders of the prophet Mohammed. So his doctrines concern- 
ing the Hereafter. Every thing in opposition to pure reason, 
Therefore, all teachers and prophets, except yours, are imposters, 
says gorilla Bamboozle. "Will they be so good," quoth he, 
" as to look at the matter in the true light ? Are we uttering 
the dictates of bigotry? of fanaticism? or those of philosophy 

5 



65 

and common sense ? Do let us be reasonable all around. Con- 
vince us if you can ; we are open to reason ; but do not under- 
take to bully us!" So the noble gorilla of the Occident. You 
are right, always right, right in advance. You are a philo- 
sopher ? Yes. You like common sense ? Yes. You don't like 
fanaticism ? No. You are open to reason? Yes. Your book, 
the book of books, proves every thing principally through 
miracles. Miracles, however, are things which are incompre- 
hensible. And, inasmuch as they are beyond the power of com- 
prehension, nobody must try to explain them profanely. They 
are too sublime. Would even cease to be wonders, if they 
were discovered to be natural. That is just what proves their 
unfathomableness. They are eternally, unfathomably true and 
loly. So also the account of the two different ascensions, one 
in a fiery chariot with fiery horses. Yes, I acknowledge that, 
when a boy, I could not understand how the rider's seat of honor 
happened to escape carbonization. Up to this day, I feel the 
smartings of the chastisement which the teacher bestowed 
upon the same respectable portion of my body, endeavoring to 
smother this profane question and thus logically to prove 
a posteriore the sacredness of the subject. But I was too 
much of a child in those times to understand what proof a pos- 
teriore meant. Certainly, as I grew older, I learned to under- 
stand ; nevertheless, a doubt has always remained. But now, 
knowing how cold it is in the higher regions and how many 
years it must have taken the prophet to complete the journey 
with his fiery chariot, even had the horses traveled with a ra- 
pidity equal to that of the sun's rays, I understand that after 
all he must have felt cold even in the fiery chariot. Yes, yes, 
it is a fact — the extreme shortsightedness of our intellect! — 
Therefore, gorilla Bamboozle believes every thing belonging to 
the canon; because intellect teaches that canon ranks before 
intellect, and that the canon of other religions is unintelligible, 
silly, tricky, charlatanical. Therefore, as the holy book relates 
that Mrs. Joseph conceived from the Holy Ghost before she 
conceived many other children just in the same manner as 
other mothers conceive, three things are proved : first, the 
holiness of her first-born ; second, the then virginity of Mrs. 



67 

Joseph ; third, that the other later born children have not the 
Holy Ghost, but Joseph for their father, and can not compete 
in direct Hue with the first-born. 

Now, after through so many wonders the truth and holiness 
has become clear to you, both of which you will certainly not 
compare with the tricks performed by the ostentatious gorilla 
Bamboozle when hawking his almanac and paper as being the 
best, or with those of the quacks at yearly fairs, then, yes, 
then the true light will gleam before you ! In the cross only 
will you then perceive bliss and salvation. What is earth and 
earthly life ? Nothing, verily, nothing ! The book and what it 
contains will be the only thing of value. 

But the words of the book are so simple, clear and compre- 
hensible that even a gorilla child can understand them. To be 
sure, you know that the old language, as spoken and written at 
that time, is long since dead. You know that now only a few 
learned men understand it. You know that even the learned 
often disagree about the text. You know that years passed 
away before the traditions were written. You see that the 
translations vary considerably in the most important passages. 
Finally, you accustom yourself to the idea that it is strange to hang 
all your weal and ivoe, your eternal salvation or condemnation on 
the vague, mysterious narrations of turbid-brained messengers and 
on the contradictory translations of ancient languages long since 
dead. You have even heard of falsifications that popes perpe- 
trated with entire books. You are aware of the truth that the 
old Teaching, as it exists to-day, is probably a spurious substi- 
tution, palmed off on the crowd by popes ; that even the Ten 
Commandments, as the world hwivs them to-day, are not the same 
ten that were toritten on the tablets of stone, and that, according to 
the second book of the Teaching, ten entirely different command- 
ments were written. — But be careful not to venture any opinion, 
such, for example, as that the whole matter, in the Old as well 
as in the New Testament, is mere trash, jugglery, conjurer's 
trickery, and that both books belong, as historical works, only to 
history ! Beware not to allow a thought which could nourish 
even the remotest doubt of its holiness, genuineness and the 
eternal truth of even a single word, of even a solitary syllable ! 



68 

If you have your temporal and eternal welfare before your eyes 
and at heart, my amiable gorilla, your principle of life must 
not be to hioio and to understand, but to believe. Believe, thinks 
even gorilla Bamboozle, canonically and philosophically, al- 
though reason incessantly cry out: nonsense, swindle, deceit, 
jugglery, imposture — and were it even palpably proved such — 
believe ! All is or suddenly will be clear to you, provided you 
believe. Firm as the rock of the sea your faith shall be, and 
as impenetrable too ; then, even the dimmest ray of reason wij] 
be scattered as waves of the sea when broken on a rock. 

As man, I would say little or nothing against all that. Such 
fellows must exist also. If the creature would only humbly 
remain within his domain. As far as I am concerned, he might 
make every day an extra summerset a la Bamboozle. But, 
behold, there he breaks forth like a horned animal, and runs 
and rages, and abuses, and slanders all and every thing that lies 
outside his domain which, indeed, is founded on the same basis, 
on the same maxim as his own, forsooth. Calls the belief of 
the other gorillas in Asia and Africa who deem themselves 
honest, plain, simple beings, charlatanery, imposition, because — 
yes, indeed — because — those in Asia and Africa do not adore, 
believe and worship his own specific nonsense, humbug, hocus- 
pocus, and because they have not the same Virgin-Madam, 
Mrs. Joseph, not the same cross, not the' same rosary to pray on, 
not the same blissful, hosannah-shrieking hurly-burly. Because 
the gorilla of the other hemisphere struts about displaying 
rings in nose and lips, it is deemed less educated than these 
here who wear them in the ears. Even so are those not so 
much christianized, because they do not dream, rave and 
swindle in the same manner. So you now see the cultivated 
gorilla every Sunday exhilarated, puffed up with exuberant 
faith, parading in all Christianity on the streets. Have con- 
fessed before the Lord to be scamps and vile rogues — though 
they would, at the same moment before a temporal judge, 
swear to the contrary — they feel themselves exalted, newly 
strengthened like the exhilarated wine-biber. Are credulous 
as children, pure as innocent babes, are meek as lambs, are all 
devout and innocent in the churches and synagogues. But 



in the latter you distinguish, as the remnants of the old Teach- 
ing, a sort of shrewdness mingled with the holy, innocent sim- 
plicity. An entirely different species of gorilla are those at 
home in the God-be-with-us temple, a species with shrewd, 
simple, innocent, holy, lamb-like countenances. 

Further, I learned from the pope's words that the gorilla is 
also indentured and bound to perform duties by virtue of vows 
of baptism and confirmation. As if the mere sprinkling of the 
newborn with hot or cold water could possess the mysterious 
powder of binding the little ones ! As if the mere act of babbling 
after priests of this or that sect, here in America or there in 
Europe, words which they have taught the irrational, unripe, 
unexperienced youth of fourteen or fifteen to rattle off like a 
parrot, could impose duties for life-time. As if even a deviation 
had ever occurred from a path which is but just opened to it, 
or a free answer had ever been given ! Did not the young one 
mechanically repeat the same words which it heard from the 
respective instructor, either catholic-gorillish, lutheran-gorillish, 
hebrew-gorillish, or reformed-gorillish ? You should see the im- 
posing solemnity when the young gorillas, male and female, 
stand dressed in festive garments, and surrounded by the old 
gorillas, before the juggler-like equipped saint in the white 
cravat. For the edification of the crowd, he puts ready-made 
questions, and receives, as if freely given, answers which 
were long before duly whipped in. Holy act, most holy! 
How they beam with glory ! However, do not grudge them the 
pleasure. For, even men are at times amused at the sight of a 
dancing monkey, and more so when there are two monkeys and 
a dromedary, and more still when there is a bear. But the 
dumb beast is often interesting, exhibits occasionally a little 
refractoriness, sticks to its own will, snorts, and growls, and 
refuses to dance, and the driver quails before it. But brain ? 
thought ? — do not expect brain when the noble gorilla exhibits 
its art. Their driver will not be frightened. That would not 
answer. But such drivers of dromedaries, bears, monkeys always 
exhibit themselves in the full dignity of a circus-clown, and 
are, as I remember, generally clad accordingly — certainly not 
like a woman, in a long white or black gown, which would be 



70 

troublesome in walking, but more like a regular buffoon. For 
you must first know that lie exhibits his tricks on the street, 
not in churches or temples. Secondly, he has to walk, not to 
stand still. Thirdly, he is candid, and acknowledges Ms trickery. 
Fourthly, he has to do with animals into which he has driven 
some reason, and not those "out of which he has industriously 
driven what little they possessed, which, truly, is incomparably 
more difficult for the gorilla inculcator. 

Furthermore, I heard him dwell in length and breadth on 
the sanctity of the Sabbath, Sunday. If any thing can, this must 
convince you that the gorilla stands far, far below man. But 
it stands immeasurably above him in — cunning and subtlety. 
Think of it, a gorilla pope steps before the herd and says in all 
earnest that they must not do work on Sunday, earn no money. 
And he does it himself, he, apart from all others, in clear, open 
day-light. Yes, this very day he has chosen ; on all other days 
he earns nothing — the indolent knave. This alone is his day of 
labor and business and traffic, and the house of God is his — 
market ! The congregation sit there and quietly listen when, 
at times, he abuses them, because some of them, in order to earn 
a few farthings for their poor families, have imitated the pope's 
working on Sunday. His arrogance has, indeed, no bounds 
or it is only equaled by the stupidity of the audience. He 
cheats the congregation with their eyes open. He tells them 
that he does it only out of pure love for Abababa ! While 
making every Sunday fifty, a hundred, two hundred, three hun- 
dred dollars, he says he does it for God's sake ! Did you ever 
hear a more bare-faced lie ? ! Having studied for years to fit 
himself professionally for this labor, ho says it is not work. 
Exactly like a schoolmaster or a lawyer studies his profession, 
so does he. Exactly in the same manner as any workman is 
paid, so is he. But he is brazen-faced enough to cheat the go- 
rilla into the belief, that it is not work. The work he does is 
not done for gold, but for the holy service of the Lord ! As if 
the poor mother who washes her child's only shirt on Sunday, 
or mends her poor husband's clothes, because both are obliged 
to work during the week for others, does not do a far more holy 
work ! But, when gorilla princes review their soldiers, especially 



71 

on Sundays, and make the gorillas clean and polish their arms 
and accoutrements from the early morning so that the sweat 
rolls from their foreheads, and parade afterwards, then the 
lackey even helps and is amused by the drill — condemns not at 
all. Moreover, the holy pope likes to feast especially on Sun- 
day, but by no means on stale manna collected perhaps on 
Friday, no ! it must be prepared afresh on Sunday, prepared in 
the sweat of the brow, on the holy Sunday, prepared on this 
sacred day of the Lord, according to the pope's command, by 
his brethren and sisters. Oh ! the hypocrisy, the lie, the de- 
lusion of the mass ! Oh ! the impudence ! I thought at each 
word of his, that at all events his chief prayer must be : Lord, 
bless them always with more stupidity ! 

After leaving, I thought of the man on the street who, for a 
few cents, allows you to look through his telescope at the moon 
or at the Great Bear. And, while you are eagerly looking, a 
pick-pocket creeps up and empties your pockets. I respect you, 
thief, for the secrecy with which you practice your art, for the 
quietness with which you slink away, for the concealment with 
which you envelop your business. Oh ! how high you stand 
above the trickster, who not only empties the pockets, but dis- 
torts the intellect , who holds out a telescope, asks and takes pay, 
but has nothing TO show ! — Could I paint, could I describe, 
could I sing, the world should know you ! But nothing is left 
for me but to set forth in plain words to my fellow men what I 
have perceived. While doing this, I acknowledge, I have often 
wished for the power to write sarcastically. For it requires 
the nature of an angel not to become sad and angry with the 
gorilla and not entirely to lose love and esteem ; for after all, it 
is and remains a part of the whole. A little irony, now and 
then, stood helpingly by my side, and I was able to get along 
in life with the inflated creature that is occasionally bold 
enough to compare itself with man. 

Had not the entire flock, with the leader at the head, played so 
seriously and earnestly with soul and immortality, with their God 
and the mother of God, with the Holy Ghost and the over- 
shadowing, with virginity and immaculateness, with Lord the 
Son, with miracles, with heavenly journeys, with anger and rage 



72 

and propitiation of the Father, with the trinity in the unity, 
and the unity in the trinity, with grace and severity, with justice 
and preference, with the great devil and all the little ones : I 
would not have taken it so seriously. As the gentleman gorilla 
is conscious of the duty which devolves on him to admire, with 
becoming gravity the fashionable lady gorilla when she shows 
her trumpery, and amiably smiles at the eccentricity and foolish- 
ness in which she joins because fashion demands it, thinking 
that even the very frankness and unconcernedness with which 
she displays her pyramid of hair, her artificial teeth, her 
padding and wadding, etc., necessitates every honorable gentle- 
man gorilla in society or elsewhere to admire, with all serious- 
ness, the fullness and roundness of her naturally beautiful form, 
the luxuriant growth of her hair, and the beauty of her pearly 
teeth : so every thinking, christianly feeling, honorable gorilla 
deems it but a holy duty to meet in submissive seriousness the 
pope whenever he shows himself in his. ludicrousness, be it in 
the sentry-box or elsewhere, be he dressed in the capouch or 
chemise, also to view the performance of his tricks and artifices 
with the most credulous air. In the same way did the augurs 
of classic memory preserve a great countenance when they en- 
countered each other, though they could scarcely suppress their 
laughter. You forgive the lady gorilla, because she frankly 
tells you and every body else besides, in especial confidence, 
that she likes to please. But the juggler who plays off his 
tricks and buffoonery as realities, merits only your contempt, 
because he secretly laughs at your trust. From the moment 
you lend him your ear, he assumes imperious airs as the mi- 
nister of the Lord, and despises you. Has always in mind the 
gorilla Samuel, who deposed one king and set up another, and 
gorilla Gregory, who kept the atoning emperor outside his door 
in the cold. 

So, after having arrived at the point whence we started, we 
close, for this volume, the chapter on the religion of the gorilla. 



73 

We shall reserve for the second volume of this work the 
chapters on the doctrine of rights and administration of laws 
among the gorillas, on their social and political life, on the laws 
of health, government, and the like. 

You surely do not expect much common sense, after having 
become acquainted with them from what was before stated. If 
you wander at night through their cities, towns and villages, in 
Europe as well as in America, you will find every house shut, 
locked and bolted, like a besieged fortress. You find every 
street guarded, and, where treasures are hoarded, besides the 
police-men, an especial private watchman. Every one appre- 
hends theft. Thus every one acknowledges by Ms action, that 

HE LIVES IN THE MIDST OF A THIEVING COMMUNITY. No one 

trusts his neighbor. Yea, should anybody leave his house open 
during the night and next morning, having been robbed, com- 
municate this to the police, he would be considered demented, 
or, at least, eccentric. They frankly call their large cities "tl\e 
hot-beds of vice" and admit that the atmosphere of the smaller 
ones is not much better. Generally, you< find among the more 
cultivated, refined gorillas, a combination of vices — such as lying, 
deceiving, cheating, perjury, robbery, rape and murder — another 
mark, as it were, to distinguish the cultivated gorilla from the 
uncultivated. But now, you should observe the civilized gorillas 
in their social converse in daylight. How honorable they are, 
how honest, just, truthful, amiable ! They speak of strict ad- 
ministration of law, of neighborly rights, of christian love! and 
at night, even behind bolt and key, in their own houses, they 
do not live a moment free from the fear that they might be 
robbed or murdered. — Thus far they have come with THEnt jus- 
tice, religion, and morality! 

Such is the life that they call christian ; such are the fruits of 
their culture and civilization! 



In business-life — the specialities of which, with nomina et 
omina, later — the axiom is recognized as a principle : Trust no 
one, consider every one bad ! Now, you should observe the civili- 
ties, the attentions, the delicate forethoughts, the assurances of 



n 

devotedness ! You have to understand all this as so much bam- 
boozling, and translate all these assurances into plain English : 
You may all go to perdition, if I can only throw dust into your 
eyes and empty your pockets ! Fruits of civilization, cultuke, 
chbistianity ! However, every body openly acknowledges that 
Christianity belongs not to business-life, but to religion, and 
with that in the churches. In business-life the universal maxim 
is : Keep your eyes open ! And in social life : Keep your doors 
shut ! Whoever acts not accordingly, has no right to complain 
when he finds himself swindled. 



As swindlers, hypocrites, liars, imposters, robbers, slanderers, 
perjurers, they represent themselves daily before Atta, their 
God. They call that pious humility, voluntary, christian con- 
fession I — Expenses ? None. — But, when standing before a civil 
Court, where honor and duty require them to tell the truth, or in 
business transactions, or in society, every one swears by his im- 
maculate word of honor, no one confesses himself guilty of even 
the slightest transgression. Among the military — the class which 
makes woe and ruin, even annihilation and extinction, a scientific 
study — the gorilla officer is deemed honorless, unworthy to as- 
sociate with his comrades, who would not kill you on the spot, 
when you tell him that you believe all of that to be true which 
he confesses before his God. He calls such a practice military 
honor, chivalry. 



Before the judiciary, the principle is recognized : " Every 
one is presumed to be good until the contrary be proved." 
In social life, every one is considered bad until the contrary be 
proved. Religion teaches, every one is bad from youth up. 
Before Atta, of course, to get some thing out of 'him, they are 
never ashamed to own all their miserableness and wickedness. 
Besides, they think that costs nothing, and can only have bene- 
ficial consequences. In all this, no one considers himself ego- 
tistical. Such a practice they call " life according to principles " 
Such is their culture, civilization, Christianity ! 



75 

Apart from social life, the gorillas have a political life simi- 
lar to men who know to convert even abnormity into virtue, 
and to render that abnormity perfection. But man, at least, 
knows that, just because social life is not perfect, he must take 
care to make the deficiencies as harmless as possible for society ; 
therefore, he always bears in mind that not the 'political, but the 
social life is the normal. Gorilla in imitating reverses it. It 
thinks, that in public life glory and possessions can be acquired, 
and, therefore, it makes that the principal consideration and the 
social life the secondary. But, that it sacrifices the social life 
and kills it altogether by stretching the abnormal political life 
to a predominating, dangerous, as it were, unhealthy extent by 
means of infinitely trivial precepts, laws and rules : this the go- 
rilla perceives just as little as gorilla Bamboozle perceives that, 
in exchange for the little he improves, he, by striving to secure 
for the female an abnormal position, totally destroys the insti- 
tution of marriage; or that he, by forcibly destroying every 
thing only to secure supremacy for the abnormity, devotes all 
his faculties to cause the downfall of the whole state. 



THE gorilla has also schools, in which teachers, educated 
for the profession, train the youth according to fixed rules. 
When I investigated the schools of the old and the new world, 
truly, I could scarcely resist the former impression which the life 
and actions of the gorilla had made on me ; for, I expected to 
find here principally the nurseries, according to the proverb : As 
the twig is bent, the tree inclines. But I determined to keep this 
impression away, that I might not be prejudiced in my obser- 
vations. Reader, let me give you a brief outline of these. If 
you still have any interest in the gorilla, then, certainly, the 
schools, the educational institutes, can not be indifferent to you. 
In the very outset, you meet with contradictions and 
problems which, up to this period, have thrown insurmountable 
obstacles in the way of enlightenment, and which still remain 
unsolved. Just think ! for thousands of years gorilla has con- 
sidered itself to be the most endowed of all creatures; for 
thousands of years it has taught and possessed institutes of 
learning ; long has it extolled its civilization ; and would you 
believe it, up to this day it does not know, 

Wlio must teach, and 
What must be taught. 

Up to this day, I say, the creature stands at the very 
starting-point, disputing on both questions, and is not ashamed 
to prate at random, a la Bamboozle, about these things ; to advance 
to-day, as indisputable, principles which it contradicts and ridicules 
to-morrow, thereby simply proving that it does not at all under- 
stand what it incessantly prates about. 



77 

Who teaches in the schools ? 

Males and females. 
What do they teach ? 

That of which they understand the least. 
Whom do they teach ? 

A creature of which they know nothing but the name. 
According to what principles do they teach ? 

Either according to none, or to unnatural ones. 
What do they aim at ? 

Superficiality and ostentation. 
Who inspects the schools ? 

Ignoramuses. 

A glance at the schools will give not only abundant proof, but 
nothing else than proof. Both preceptor and preceptress, them- 
selves barely acquainted with the tool with which they have to 
work, understand still less of the little creature on which they 
work. Of the young, they have scarcely any more knowledge 
than the cat has of her offspring. They know that the little 
animal is called gorilla, and that a gorilla is neither an elephant, 
nor a bird, nor an oyster. That is about all. Much more of the 
creature which they intend to train, they certainly do not know. 
Train ? O holy simplicity ! Truly, Ulysses' holy swine-herd 
understood more of his swine, than the teacher of the young ones ! 
Of their organs he knows nothing, and of their systems no more. 
Of the life of the brain and nerves he lenotvs nothing; for, what a 
brain or a nerve is, he has never experienced. But all profess 
to have studied anatomy, physiology, psychology, that is, if 
you call studying and understanding the mere committing to 
memory of some technical terms and words. Exactly as the 
so-called educated lady gorilla will prate to her physician about 
dyspepsia, neuralgia, biliousness, denoting therewith every thing 
and nothing, while, in reality, she understands nothing at all 
of it ; just as the country-clown in uncouth language depicts 
his cramps, colds, rheumatism, so the teacher in his style speaks 
of the brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, nerves. Much would 
not be lost by that ; but, in his ignorance, he daily hammers un- 
mercifully on the same heart, brain and nerves. How much or 



78 

how little tlie brain of this or that poor innocent being that 
is entrusted to the care of the blunderer can stand, is abso- 
lutely not known to him. He has sniffed from the books some- 
thing in the abstract; talks also very learnedly about strong 
and weak nerves, as if they were either silken threads or ropes. 
But natural science ? Ho, ho ! he is not a physician, he thinks. 
That he needs not for his craft ! Natural science ? Hm ! All 
ought not to be educated in the natural sciences ; they shall be 
made plain citizens, says gorilla Bamboozle. Nevertheless, I 
opine they are things that live in nature, that possess organs, 
and that, by virtue of these organs, take their rank among the 
created beings. Knows not the gardener, besides the soil, the 
properties of the plant, which require this or that kind of soil 
to secure a vigorous growth ? And should it not be the teachers' 
purpose to educate the whole of the creature, and not to polish 
arbitrarily the one or the other quality ? But he himself under- 
stands neither the whole, nor the parts, nor the connecting links. 
He does not know the phases of the development of the organs, 
the influence of these on life, nor the influence of life on the or- 
gans. — Yet, he trains and educates! He does not know what 
is normal for the several ages, for the various organs, for the 
systems ; he does not know what is abnormal. — Yet, he trains 
and educates ! He does not know the harmony of the parts, nor 
the disharmony. — Yet, he trains and educates! He does not 
know the soil, atmosphere, temperature in which the plant may 
live, thrive, or die. — Yet, he trains and educates ! "What influence 
sedulous hearing, seeing, thinking, may have upon the ear, eye, 
brain, nerve, or upon the heart, the blood and its circulation of 
this or that male or female young one, whether to strengthen, 
or to weaken, to cause suffering and lingering, corruption and 
destruction, he does not know. — Yet, he hammers away! And 
that is ivhat the gorilla calls training, that is what lies at the bottom 

Of ITS CIVILIZATION, PEOGEESS ! — 

And the preceptress — who is she ? But this moment emerged 
from the spelling department herself, having in memory some 
hundred names of cities, rivers, lands, mountains, valleys, of 
some stars and constellations, of old and new things from 
history, and instead of history some stories, she dares, because 



79 

entitled to marry and to get children, undertake the rearing 
and educating of a noble creature, of which she does not under- 
stand even the nail on its foot, or the hair on its head, not 
to mention its organs and their energies. She, just run from 
school, intends to educate youth ! She, who understands as little 
of her own body and its systems as of her energies and intel- 
lectual qualities, is allowed to lay the groundivork of an education 
upon which the future of the young animal depends, Eidiculous! 
Farcical! Eather let her go learn how to wash out napkins! 

And the inspector ? 

Any one may act as inspector who is of the same grade of 
ignorance and arrogance, or who is even, as is often the case 
on the other side of the ocean, a minister ; just such a minister 
as we have become acquainted with, full of esoteric learnedness, 
useful, perhaps, after gorilla is dead. 

But you err, when you imagine that the gorilla does not 
know any better. It is well aware that it holds the first rank 
among the animals. It knows its excellencies, and how to pro- 
cure respect for them. It proves to a hair's breadth, that an 
upright carriage, articulate language, and harmonious com- 
bination of the so-called five senses, as well as a higher intelli- 
gence, are its especial properties and the foundation of its 
pride. For no other animal has such qualities. Now, you 
would think, it is plainly to be seen that those qualities especial- 
ly should be cultivated, and that this cultivation should be the 
object of their education. Yes, were they men, real men, you 
could expect that. But from a gorilla animal, you have always 
to expect an unreasonable rather than a reasonable mode of 
action. So the animal takes pleasure in reversing the order of 
what may be called education. 

In order to remotely hint at how this is effected in schools, 
let me briefly refer to what concerns first the articulate language. 
The principal maxim in regard to this is: Whichever gorilla 
brat speaks least, never asks questions, and answers, at best, 
but poorly, is the most pleasing ! Hold your tongue is the first 
virtue. 

And the second, which equals the first, is : Sit still ! For 
that purpose and for the teacher's rod, God has created the seat 



80 

of honor! He who sits doubled up for hours and does not 
move, gives satisfaction also. An upright carriage does not 
belong to the requirements of the school ; that is only a second- 
ary affair, to be exercised, if wished, during the quarter of an 
hour recess, or at a gymnasium. 

The cardinal rule for developing the mind is : Thoughts shall 
be dulled, and even the faculty of thinking itself must be laid waste 
by years of senseless spelling. 

But, as the harmony of the five senses already exists, gorilla 
thinks that it does not need any cultivation. 

So the gorilla child, with naturally proud and upright car- 
riage, is condemned, from the time of entering school, to sit the 
greater part of its life contracted ; it moves the limbs only ex- 
ceptionally. The attentive child, who has already begun to 
observe the objects of nature and to ask wondering questions, 
is condemned, from the time of entering school, to observe nothing 
and to hold its peace. Speaking and thinking do not belong in 
school. That would be too troublesome. The harmony of the 
senses, however, is attended to by cultivating the principal sense, 
that of feeling, by a most vigorous, methodical exercise of the 
rod. Consequently, smelling, hearing, seeing, as modifications 
of the sense of feeling, thrive in the narrow precincts of the 
schoolroom. 

Permit me to give a single, great, very great and convincing 
example of the treatment of the senses, or rather, of the total 
indifference to them, or even more, of the stupidity surpassing all 
comprehension, in rearing and educating, and, indeed, of the su- 
perlative impertinence in assuming to do the same. 

During half a century, I have not found in the whole 

CIVILIZED WORLD A SINGLE TEACHER WHO, IN TRAINING AND EDU- 
CATING THE GORILLA, HAS GIVEN THE SLIGHTEST ATTEN- 
TION TO THE NOBLEST OF ALL THE ORGANS OF THE SENSES, THE 
EYE — A SENSE, ON WHICH PRE-EMINENTLY DEPENDS PERCEPTION, 
OBSERVATION, EXPERIENCE, JUDGMENT, KNOWLEDGE ! 

If you only possess a kind of human understanding, or har- 
bor within you the slightest compassion, confess, gorilla, that 
you could not find an ox-driver rude enough, or a rearer of 
horses stupid enough, not to guard the limbs of his animals, or 



81 

not to have their training more at heart. Certainly the horse- 
dealer pays great attention to the animal's eye and gathers 
knowledge bearing on. it. However, the gorilla schoolmaster 
and schoolmistress — but, let me be silent ; my sorrow would be 
beyond measure, had I to compare them with men. Whether 
the young one has weak or strong eyes, it is all the same — the 
creature must read; the poor, innocent worm must read the 
whole day long, imprisoned between four walls — the cheerful, 
sunny, glorious day which it formerly passed carelessly and 
innocently out of doors in the open air, strengthening limbs 
and sight. No matter whether the type be large or small, the 
light natural or artificial — the unhappy young one, pent in its 
house after having just left the prison of the schoolroom, must 
read. All the same ! What cares the trainer, the becrippler, 
the perverter ! He is not a physician, he thinks ; his school 
not a gymnasium. Does he not pay every attention to the 
organ as soon as it has grown weak and when such is proved 
by a physician's certificate? Does he not immediately treat 
the little one indulgently ? Indulgently ! — Exempts it for a while 
from the systematic, methodical corruption ! — As IF, indeed, the 

GORILLA SCHOOLS WERE ANY THING ELSE THAN INSTITUTIONS FOR 
PERVERTING, CORRUPTING, DISTORTING BOTH BODY AND MIND ! — 

But ethics, morals, and religion, are the elements of the 
school, says the gorilla caricature. It trains to ethics, religion, 
morals, and lays the foundation for acroatics ! Alas ! and when 
the natural consequences follow, it has and exhibits so much 
tenderness and pity for the suffering poor that have lost their 
sight — for the poor, poor, poor blind ! And every one, with a 
pitying heart, throws a penny to them when they sit by the 
way-side — the poor blind ! And no one ever, ever puts a hinder- 
ance in their way — never, never more, if they have only once 
grown blind !— Eeligion teaches that — civilization — Chris- 
tianity I 

But do not imagine, dear reader, that gorilla unhesitatingly 
acknowledges that you ar6 so indisputably right. Certainly,, 
gorilla sees and acknowledges that — yes, certainly — it must not 
be denied that in some things, in many, in very many, you may- 
be right. But, in the meanwhile, however, there is much, very 
6 



82 

much to be said on this or that point. It is certainly right, says 
gorilla, much might, could, and should be otherwise. T , says 
gorilla, in order to admit more still, it would be moreover 
I add moreover — desirable that some things were otherwise- 
But, on the other side, there are so many points to be con- 
sidered which can not very well be disregarded. And then, it 
is always easier to find fault than to improve. And, finally, 
there is certainly, alas ! nothing perfect on earth ! 

Now, reader, what do you say? Are not these objections 
convincing ? Now let any one among you arise and tell me that 
gorilla is not always right, even when it begins and ceases to 
educate preposterously. And do you doubt that it has good 
reason for that? Good, logical, philosophical, transcendental 
reasons, drawn from ethics, morals, religion, civilization, Chris- 
tianity ! From Christianity, I say ; and the noble creature has 
already commenced to severely punish those who torture and 
maltreat horses or dogs. Yes, yes, the creature is humane, even 
toward beasts — the creature is christian! — 

It was post Christiumnatum, I even know the datum; it was 
in the latter half of the nineteenth century, when gorilla Bam- 
boozle called out to the gorillas, saying : 

" Undoubtedly (gorilla Bamboozle never doubts, is always 
right when he prates; for, he is canonically, philosophically, 
christianly credulous !) the correct principle is, that the state 
should furnish to the people at the public expense such an edu- 
cation in reading and grammar as will enable them to inform 
themselves from the newspapers as to their duties as citizens, 
and in arithmetic and writing as will enable them to earn an 
honest living. This is all that is required. More than this is 
corruption and waste, a burden too grievous to be borne by the 
poor as well as the rich" 

In the first place, what Bamboozle calls state should, per- 
haps, be translated society, A little confusion more or less is of 
no importance to the animal in America. He does not say what 
he calls " indubitably correct principle," nor does he say any 
more about that on which it is based. This much appears 
certain, that it rests with that creature on two foundations : 



83 

first, short-sightedness and stupidity, and second, boundless 
arro£ ve. We do not wish to waste niQre words about that, 
x any school-boy twelve years old could prove it for the gorilla 
as easily. 

But for amusement's sake, let us add only one thing which 
clearly shows how short-sightedness, arrogance and self-suf- 
ficiency dare step before the public to influence its opinion. 
" The people shall learn their duties as citizens from the news- 
papers," says gorilla Bamboozle. But, as the newspapers are 
manifold and contradictory, he can mean nothing but this : 
People must, besides learning arithmetic and to write, by which 
to make their living, read my paper or such as I recommend 
to learn their duties as citizens. That is all that is necessary for 
public education. More than this is corruption and waste ! — 
So, the Alpha and Omega of public education is, gorilla Bam- 
boozle and his paper. That's about all. Were it only a question 
about the repudiating of a state's debt, I would certainly have 
to admire the diplomatic acuteness, which, in order to act con- 
sistently and harmoniously in all departments of science, bor- 
rows maxims and principles from the doctrine of finances, and 
transplants them to the field of education. The gorilla, having 
already adopted this fashion from abroad, lives and acts only 
in maxims and principles, just like the soldier lives in honor 
and words of honor, or the pope in holiness. The people are 
only to be familiarized to the sound and idea of the word repu- 
diation. This accomplished, the public itself will do the rest — 
every thing does the public ! For that purpose, pioneers and 
mountebanks are sent out into the land ; for that, in the outset, 
tremendous assurances of honesty and justice are given; for 
that, gorilla Bamboozle exhausts his whole catechism of abuse 
and vilification against the miscreants who, like his otherwise 
honorable friends, dared mention the word repudiation, and al- 
low a recommendation of the same to escape their lips. In the 
meantime, the people will get accustomed to the horrible 
monster, as the Bomans under Fabius got accustomed to look 
the Africans in the face. And, rely on it, as soon as this step 
is made, gorilla will know how to justify it, logically, ethically, 
morally, politically. Finally — huzza, huzza ! nobis restituit rem ! 



84 

The republic is restored, no longer any taxes ! Just as the fore- 
fathers intended it, Hosanna, hallelujah! The people have 
accomplished it all, all through the people, all for the people! 
Harmony every where! How satisfactory! — So, when the gorilla 
prays to the Lord to be taken to heaven, meaning : " Let me, 
if possible, stay here ten or twenty years longer, and after that 
forever! Hallelujah!" Even so teaches the divine : "No work 
for pay on the holy Sabbath ; but only give me extra pay for 
my work on that day! Hallelujah!" So gorilla Bamboozle 
preaches: " Be economical; but buy my paper and calendar, as 
the best means on earth for — education ! Hallelujah!" 

Beading, writing, grammar, and arithmetic, therefore, is all 
that the gorilla in America considers as the quintessence of 
public training and education. If you only add to this religious 
instruction as a necessary requisite for Europe, with the under- 
standing that this is considered there the chief thing, then you 
have in a nutshell the beginning and end of all public education, 
there as well as here. Any thing else, as we have seen above, 
is considered, both here and there, as superfluous, nay, as a 
waste of time and money, as an evil! — 

So then, let us see what is the sum total of the beginning 
and the end of the gorilla child's education by means of religion, 
reading, writing, and arithmetic. "We need only briefly look the 
truth in the face. 

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

The child is taught, that there is but one God, who feels, 
thinks, and acts like a gorilla being ; but who possesses only all 
the good qualities of the most elevated kind; who acts through 
the word and rests on the Sabbath, doing nothing at all ; who 
loves and hates, rejoices and gets angry ; who has made the en- 
tire world only for the gorilla ; who is severely just, but forgiving 
when entreated; who wishes to be entreated; who has once 
spoken to and transacted business with the gorilla ; who allows 
one race to do what he forbids another, as the eating of pork ; 
who countenances polygamy, but equally recommends celibacy; 
who makes it a duty to continually persecute and extirpate 



85 

entire races, but forbids hatred and offense ; who threatens with 
eternal condemnation and all imaginable afflictions, as the 
punishment of death by stoning; but who again forbids revenge, 
and recommends not to return offense, and not to execute legal 
punishment. A religion which teaches belief in witchcraft, 
devils, and exorcism, and imposes punishment for belief in the 
same. A religion which teaches there is but one God, and 
punishes as idolatry every deviation from it; again, a religion 
which teaches there are three Gods, with angels and archangels, 
and calls the three one. A God who makes every one respon- 
sible only for his own crimes; and yet makes the children 
suffer and die for the sins of their parents. A God who re- 
wards according to desert ; and yet, from the very beginning, 
elects and prefers. ' A God who proffers, as rewards here below 
the tresures of earth and an overflowing fullness; and, again, 
one who teaches to despise all that together with earth itself, 
as if it were so much old trumpery, and who holds out to the 
gorilla a future with everlasting bliss, or one with eternal woe, 
lamenting, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. — 

But enough of the nonsense ! For every one who possesses 
reason will acknowledge that too much, alas ! is contained in 
the above. But it is not necessary that even that much should 
be acknowledged and agreed to. The conviction suffices that 
all those are abstract assertions, which may as well be given to 
a parrot for understandable repetition as to a gorilla young one 
of six, eight, or twelve years. In the commencement of the young 
one's education, the teacher s first aim is to train it to this 
parrot-like imitation; and then, that a similar system of imi- 
tation he incorporated in the community / and finally, to annihi- 
late every thing else! — Thus natuee, peeception, obseevation, 
UNDEESTANDING, aee extiepated! — So far from giving an im- 
pulse to its promotion, they, on the contrary — and that is the 
point — smother every spark in the very commencement. Not only 
is the religion idolatry — gross idolatry — hut systematic subju- 
gation of mind, slaveey! Man would call it beutalization ! — 
It is en vogue in Europe, and is eagerly promoted in America. 



86 



BEADING, WHITING, GItAMMAB, AKITHMETIO. 

Were all your absent friends and acquaintances, my dear 
gorilla, were all the luminaries of former ages present, so that 
you could orally interchange thoughts with them, would you 
think of writing to them instead of speaking? — Indeed, gorilla 
Bamboozle would make you believe the former to be advisable. 
But I think that you use letters simply because they are absent, 
not within hearing distance, hence, only as substitutes for hear- 
ing, seeing, conversing. To what, then, amounts gorilla Bam- 
boozle's "undoubted" maxim and dogma concerning education? 
All that public education aims at, are those secondary means of 
communication, those auxiliary substitutes. So you see, that the 
things themselves for which substitutes are applied, the pri- 
mary objects of education, are banished, thrown overboard. 
Therefore, to be brief and explicit, the real teaching, real edu- 
cation from mouth to mouth, from person to person, does not 
belong to public schools. You find reading and writing in them 
instead of oral teaching and stimulation to speak. — Or do I, 
perhaps, exaggerate? We shall see. A single glance into the 
schools is all I need. If that does not entirely convince you, 
then, I acknowledge that I still owe you the proof. 

The gorilla child has father and mother, and sisters and 
brothers; most of them have other relatives also. It is torn 
from them, can neither, see nor hear them, nor be educated by 
their example ; for, from its sixth year, it has to sit in school 
each day from morning till night, for years and years. The 
school is its home. The time of its not being there is the ex- 
ception. The teachers converse with the young in a manner 
entirely strange and unnatural to them. They begin with spell- 
ing, spelling, spelling — days, weeks, years ; grammar, grammar, 
grammar, that is, dead, abstract rules; drawing letters — writ- 
ing — the first year, the second year, and every year. All 
speech, all conversation and teaching revolve around spelling, 
reading, writing, grammar, arithmetic. All for the sole pur- 
pose of fitting the young one to communicate with the absent, 
to exchange thoughts with those who are not present. No com- 
munication, no speaking for those who surround them. To 



87 

teach what the ground is, the earth on which it treads; what 
the light and air in which it lives and breathes ; what plant and 
what animal, does not belong to the system of public edu- 
cation ! — 

The teacher does not speak of it, does not teach it. Oral 
instruction — is not reading, is not writing. Gorilla Bamboozle 
thinks it an evil! To converse with the young on the con- 
struction of the plant and its life, on the formation of animal 
organization — is not reading, writing, grammar ! Conversation 
on individual and social life, on rights and duties — is not read- 
ing, writing, grammar. Gorilla Bamboozle offers his paper 
and calendar for that purpose instead ! To be sure, the teacher 
himself usually knows nothing about these things. And then, 
he comes out with the assertion, that these are beyond the 
abilities and comprehension of the young one ! As if intuition, 
perception, observation, were more difficult than the com- 
prehension of abstract rules on spelling, grammar, arithmetic, 
and the Lord's commissions and omissions, likings and dis- 
likings, justice and grace, and the amenities of a future life! 
Respecting all these things, the young must become an artist, 
and must know what comma, semicolon, phrases, and periods 
are. Can you wonder that the gorilla young one finally knows 
this and every thing else, except what is natural ? Nothing of 
nature, nothing of common sense But the young creature, as 
it has studied religion — say, idolatry — knows exactly what God 
the Father, God the Son, and the Mother of God, think and 
do not think, what they do and will not do, now and for all eter- 
nity, here below and there above, and also what they deem 
right and wrong. The creature, while yet young, knows why 
the Sons of God, and Satan among them, have from time to 
time to present themselves before God to converse with him ; 
and why Satan is allowed, as he was with Job, to play off his 
tricks on the Lord himself as well as on the pious gorilla. But 
take the young one into a fruit-garden in winter, and, I venture 
to say, it will not be able to distinguish an apple-tree from a 
pear-tree. It prides itself on studying and knowing extra- 
mundane things, yet understands so little, so very little, of 
the mundane. Therefore, education is begun ivith trivialities and 



88 

ended with artifices. And that is tvhy the gorilla, in its daily 
pursuits, in its struggles and actions, both in social and civil life, 
has reached by means of religion, morals, and laivs, the point 
bellum omnium contra omnes. Why then will you not admit 
the fact ? You continually live, individually as tuell as generally, 
on a war-footing. 

Your civilization is — simulation, courtesy. Tour Chris- 
tianity — GRINNING MOCKERY. YOURSELF — A PERSONIFIED CARI- 
CATURE. 

And yet, were you only to take man, veritable man, as your 
model, it would be so easy with the aid of common sense, of 
which you boast, to take the right path. Only glance at the 
progress made among men, and inquire whence it came, and in 
what provinces it has been made. Has religion called it into 
life, or have reading, writing, and grammar ? 

It is the Natural Sciences, the study of grand, glorious, sublime 
nature, which shovjs progress; and beyond this, there is no pro- 
gress; there is nothing, absolutely nothing! — 

But religion, as we have shown above, and shall show more 
clearly in an especial volume later, has upheld, in the way of 
teaching, only one precept, namely: No teaching/ As far as 
life and strife are concerned, the church-agents have every 
where endeavored to be always true servants, adorers and 
disciples of the One who, they say, is a Jealous One, which 
jealousy they emulate by persecuting and extirpating Amalek 
tribes from generation to generation. 

Now then, gorillas, build on high your temples, the alone- 
saving, the Catholic, Lutheran, Hebrew ; establish so-called 
benevolent institutions, institutions for widows and orphans, 
asylums for decrepids and invalids, correctional institutions ;es- 
tablish societies for support, temperance societies, and others 
with other names invented to suit your patch-work. Do you not 
perceive that the more holes you fill, the more there remain to 
be filled ? Always more paupers, always more wretches, always 
more villainy, the more you fill these institutes ! "Why is it ? 

Because the whole structure is rotten, so rotten that even your 
patch-ivorh will not stick. It is altogether trash, nothing but trash, 



89 

ridiculously poor trash ! Or do you really expect to blind those 
who see, that they may not perceive that, in founding such 
institutions, you feel yourselves compelled always to pay the 

EXPENSES OF THE WARFARE IN WHICH YOU CONSTANTLY DRAG ON 

life ? Are these institutes of stern necessity to prove perhaps 
your benevolence, your love, civilization, Christianity ? Ah ! 
do they ? Yes, they prove — but, alas ! the contrary. — Each and 
all of these institutions prove even by the very name how necessary 
you consider them. They further prove HOW foul it is IN the 

STATE; HOW MORBID, DECAYED, AND ROTTEN YOUR SOCIETY, YOUR 

morals, your habits, your customs, deep down to the very 
root. And besides that, they all bear on the face a lack of 
true consideration, of true brotherly and sisterly love. That the 
blush of shame does not color your face, that the tongue does 
not cleave to the roof of your mouth, when you speak of the 
dignity of man, of Christianity, of civilization and culture, 
proves either your stupidity, or obstuseness and arrogance. 

I have not yet mentioned that the little good which may 
really be effected within the narrow boundaries of those insti- 
tutes, is more than doubly balanced by the corrupt affiliations, 
the evil from within and without, which pervades them through 
and through. 

On the other side, you will gladly exempt me from adducing 
proof of progress in the natural sciences. Will you not ? 

You will exempt me from proving furthermore, that what 
you call religion has formidably blockaded the progress of the 
natural sciences. Will you not ? 

You will exempt me also from adducing proof that, from the 
period in which natural science was fostered even in a very 
modest degree, witchcraft and spectres of religion continually 
became more scarce, together with the abominable trials and 
torture of witches, that were diligently nursed by religion in 
the name of Him whom they call the Jealous. 

You exempt me also — do you not ? — from proving that the 
whole religious dominion, be it Christian or Hebrew, has been 
in a ferment, since natural sciences first commenced to be culti- 
vated and to emerge from the secluded studies of the guardian 
few into the light of open day ? 



90 

Do you not know that even the lords of darkness begin to 
reform all around ? — 

Yes, they reform, they say, according to the times. They wish 
to model the Lord God according to the tymes ! Why not ? He 
who has the right to model, has also the right to remodel. 

They reform religion according to the times ; according to 
the times, Satan and their doctrine of Satan; according to the 
times, the Jealous One, the Revenger, the Extirpator of races, the 
God icho threatens ivith eternal damnation; also his aids and 
the intercessors. 

They have altogether to pass through reform according to 
the times — like Parisian fashions ! 

Do you not see, you wise lords, what means this "according 
to the times ?" 

YOU INTEND TO ADJUST THEM TO NATURAL SCIENCES ! 

Ah, ha ! you intend to bring about something like an amal- 
gamation I — Do you not ? 

But you merely intend to brush up the old, to give it a fresh 
luster, or to wash over a common metal with a precious one. 

But, leaving altogether out of view that your whole structure 
is rotten to the core, I tell you, you are not even able to do that 
much. 

YOU, LEAST OF ALL, should arrogate to reform " ac- 
cording to the times," for 

You do not know what is "according to the times!" 
You do not even know the elements of natural science! 

Now, you have heard of things which natural science has 
brought to light, such as telegraph, application of steam power, 
etc. A»nd, foolish as a child with its toy, you think to bring 
about a congruence between natural science and your old Lord, 
your old Devil, your ascensions and resurrections, exorcisms 
and the overshadowing. Eidiculous ! Your trash is rotten. 

So PITCH IT AND YOURSELVES AWAY AMONG THE PLUNDER — if 

you feel yourselves too feeble to work in the temple of knowl- 
edge first for your own cultivation. Just confess, that you are 
too stupid, too ignorant, to train and to cultivate others. In 
respect of educating and training the young and the people, 
you can claim only the title of corruptors. 



91 

Why then, gorilla, do you not base public education on the 
principles recognized by the doctrine of natural sciences? 
Why not begin and end every where in the public schools with 
natural science ? Why will you continue to teach your children 
things which their minds can not grasp, and not to teach, yea, 
to exclude, such things as they can understand, such things 
as lie directly within their sphere? Why not begin their 
training, their education, with instruction bearing on the stone, 
the plant, the animal, their parts and formation, the bones, the 
muscles, the veins, the nerves, the organs and their functions, 
by aliuays demonstrating and describing every thing as the natural 
sciences demand ? Why not proceed from this basis to culti- 
vate the mind gradually and progressively ? 

Ah, you have already begun, you say ? Do you really think 
that the mere act of blinking at and ogling the natural sciences, 
by reading and writing masters who do not understand even the 
elements of natural sciences^ or your so-called Kindergarten, or 
what you call "intuitive method," can be substituted as an 
equivalent? — Do you think, that the showing of the things on 
the wall in the school-room, in the kitchen, in the garden, can 
be called training according to natural science? Or do you think, 
that any unscientific prating can be called a natural, scientific 
demonstration ? Or do you think, that all this is of no conse- 
quence either in public schools or in the primary education of 
the young ? So I tell you, that the public schools ought to have 
the best teachers, that the yoinyg need the best qualified educators ! 
But you carry on your contemptible play with serious ' and 
noble things, becarse you yourselves understand nothing of 
J;hem, because the reading, writing, and religion master is rooted 
in the very marrow of your bones. Your only endeavor is 

to disguise it with new garniture. 

The ivhole public school education from Alpha to Omega must 
be founded on natural science. Besides that, the teacher of the 
young— the trailer of the people — must understand the young 
individually, its talents and disposition, to be able to select 
his respective method accordingly. Above all, knowledge and 
truth, not falsity and deception, not illusion ! Those are the 
main things. Beading and writing are mere accompaniments, 



92 

secondary things, and must never be taught to the detriment 
of the former, never ! 

Then, henceforth, you may also choose female teachers as 
well as male, but remunerate them so that they may live free 
from care. Nature has indicated her position for normal life — 
life in society — not for the abnormal. But they first need to be 
trained themseves for the vocation of education ; and above all, 
they need to understand the nature of the young ivhose first 
education is especially entrusted to them. 

Will you aver that, as long as you have nothing better, like 
in religion, you will follow the old beaten path in every province 
of science, of action, of life? Then continue, after perceiving 
only universal and total wretchedness, to all eternity. If you 
never commence at the root, surely, the fruit will never fall 
all ripe into your lap from heaven ! 

When you turn your eyes upon the number of great and 
good things which the natural sciences have produced in their 
infancy and seclusion under enormous hinderances and con- 
tinuous, furious persecution, will you maintain that there is no 
other ivay for public education than that of avowed falsehood and, 
deception^ pronounced holy and authorized by means of re- 
duplicated legislation, and hedged in with frightful menaces of 
temporary and eternal punishment and torments so bad, so 
frightful, so overwhelming, that — no rational being, as soon as 
it begins to think, fails to ridicule the anxiety and dread, and 
him besides who in his saintliness inspired the dread ! 

Also do not say, "It is difficult, too difficult, to find every 
where suitable teachers." True, the great crowd of the at 
present so-called teachers will have to withdraw. They may 
be disposed of as reading and writing masters, and the divines 
may readily retire to the Hereafter. But, if you can not im- 
mediately supply all schools with naturalists, supply at least as 
many as you can, and cultivate and train more. 

Only begin. But do not say, " Because we can not do all, 
we will not do any, and prefer to persist in the wrong !" 



93 

You, however, 

EDITOKS 

of newspapers widely read in the New World, do not in future 
allow yourselves to be deprived of the consciousness of having 
given the impulse to the great work completely and universally, 
instead of applying here and there, as I notice with displeasure, 
your great and noble gifts to further patchwork in civil and 
social life, patchwork, in the pursuance of which, while on one 
side discovering, laying open, and mending one rotten place, 
ten more attract your attention on the other side. Begin then, 
and I am convinced that the good will of many of the rich and 
noble who now contribute their hundred thousands for the 
furtherance of such patchwork, will not fail you. They will 
thus show that all appreciation, all hope for true, natural, 
public education is not entirely extinguished. 




iqd )<~vr> unx 



TS5?S 



Gorilla Catechism. 



EMANUEL HEEZBERG, M.D. 



' ' Wherefore art tliou red in thine apparel, 

And thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat ' 
I have trodden the winepress alone; 

And of the people there was none with me: 
For I will tread them in mine anger, 
And trample them in my firry.'' 



"Itaque, si ant acrius egero ant liberins quam qui ante me dixeruut, peto a vobis, 
ut tautum orationi meae coucedatis, quantum et pio dolori et justae iracundiae conce- 
dendum putetis." 



TEADE SUPPLIED BY 

THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, 
117, 119 & 121 Nassau St. 

f^ 5 1869. 




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